Sony xperia z5

mooseknunkle wrote: »

I have it the past 3 weeks so ill try give you a review..

Ill start with the camera which is fantastic,it got great reviews beforehand and its lived up to my expectations i had a Galaxy S6 and i thought the camera was great on that but the Z5 is a lot better..

Now the battery is also great i can get easily a full day with heavy usage and thats without the stamina mode on,i had Z3 last year and the battery was great in that too and even though the Z5 is a smaller battery its still more or less the same usage as i had with the Z3....

The screen is nice not as good as the S6 or the Nexus 6P but still very clear and crisp great for watching videos etc,the 2 front speakers are kind of hidden but still a nice sound from them..

The call quality is excellent i switched from 3 to Vodafone and the difference is very noticeable...

When i first got the phone it was very slow and a lot of lag,i mean really slow,so i deleted a lot of apps that i just never use and now its unreal how fast it actually is,switching between apps its lighting fast,sending messages everything there is just no lag with it now....

The phone itself is thinner and lighter than i thought,not much has changed in design from the Z3 apart from the frosted back glass which is a bit slippery when im holding it with one hand,im not a fan of cases but i will need to put one on it and there isnt much choice out there at the moment for it..

Overall im very happy with it,i change phones every couple of months and this year alone i think ive had about 6 different ones,but im going to stick with the Z5 for at least a year it has everything ive been looking for...

One issue I've read about is over-heating, or even been quite hot when using apps, browsing etc. Have you noticed this? Thanks for review!

I've had the Z5 for a week now. I was previously using the Lumia 920 since release in 2012 so I can't really compare the Z5 against any other Android phone. I have a Nexus 7 tablet that has me mostly familiar with Android.

So it's a very nice phone to hold and to use, but seems very delicate so I am now rocking this semi-transparent case which makes it easy to grip and will provide some protection. It also looks quite well. Having said that the naked phone was knocked out of my hand onto a wooden floor at a wedding and it survived with nary a scratch. The frosted glass back is really nice.

The first day or two with the phone I had a lot of apps installing and running for the first time and it got pretty hot. But since then it is cool in standby and only moderately warm during browsing / reddit / camera / simple games. Fairly cool when messaging, simple reading, watching video etc. Even when it does get warm the heat is primarily at the top of the device between the camera and the sony logo so it's nowhere near where your hand would usually hold it in portrait. I don't game a lot so I can't comment on heat issues there.

I don't have any lagging issues, it's a very fast phone in every regard except one (more on that later) and I would suspect that some cheeky apps are the reason for other people seeing lag issues. Since moving to android I've found it alarming how much junk it is possible to install on your phone that can cripple performance and battery life. Never had that with Windows Phone. Battery life is good and is well over a day; I wouldn't expect to have to charge the phone during daylight unless I'm using it a lot for navigation in the car. I can't see myself getting two full days out of it unless I turn on Stamina mode though.

So the camera: I read a lot on it before buying and there was some wildly varying opinions out there. But having looked at sample photos online I was happy enough. A physical shutter button is also crucial IMO on a phone as I'm used to it on all my previous smartphones. Having used the camera quite a bit now I am very pleased with the results; photos look natural and good, both on the phone and when viewed on my laptop later. There is a very wide field of view with this lens so the edges are soft, but if you zoom when shooting (or crop later) then you are getting the same field of view as any other phone (eg my old Lumia) without any fuzzy edges. My old Lumia takes excellent shots (even 3 years later) but I feel the Z5 is an improvement. It oversamples 23mp shots into an 8mp image with reduced noise, but results so far are still kinda noisy (compared to the Lumia) if you pixel-peep. Photos indoors and out look good.

However, launching the camera from standby by holding the camera button is hit and miss; it doesn't launch the camera in about 1 in every 5 cases. And sometimes the delay launching the viewfinder can be up to 3 or 4 seconds. But then it can be as fast as under a second sometimes. So consistency here is not good. Viewing previous shots is also maddeningly slow at times. Shot to shot speeds are pretty lame when using the default Superior Auto camera mode, but are better in Manual mode. However Superior Auto is the default when launching from the camera button so you're stuck with it. This is all software stuff though and this is a brand new sensor for Sony so I'm sure they are working hard on it. A scheduled update to the Camera UI is coming in November so I wait with bated breath.

Everything else with the phone is good; nice screen, very thin and light compared to my Lumia, good speakers, etc. The fingerprint reader is one of the features which lured me to the Z5 as I am sick of unlocking my Lumia with a pin. The reader is excellent and you can register any number of fingers. Works 9 out of 10 times for me and even in the event where it doesn't recognise the first attempt it gets it on the second; still faster than manually entering your pin. The position of the reader in the power button makes absolute sense.

Things I miss from my Lumia: the Start Screen with live tiles, Glance (time and notifications on the screen in a kind of low-power mode), Kids Corner, wireless charging, overall reliability of the OS. What I don't miss is the patchy app support, the feeling that Windows Phone has "reset" yet again with the move to 10, the "Resuming.." message every time I switch apps, the lack of SD card in my Lumia, and entering the PIN 100 times a day.

Nice phone, would recommend.

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

What launchers did you try out?

I assume coming from a Lumia, you obviously tried this launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lx.launcher8&hl=en

But did you try others like...
The Smart Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ginlemon.flowerfree&hl=en

The Google Now Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.launcher&hl=en

The Nova Launcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher&hl=en

I haven't tried launcher 8 as it would probably only bother me to use an imitation start screen lacking some of the live tile features of the real thing. I installed Nova Launcher with the Elun icon pack so it looks pretty nice now.

I'm going to look more into widgets to try to emulate the live tile feel.

Jelle1880 wrote: »

Bought one yesterday, what a delight.

Fantastic device so far.

Cool. Have you recorded any 4k video. Wondering how long it can go before it warns about overheating. My S6 is limited to a measly 5 minutes.

Great. By all accounts it beats all the other phones hands down for 4k.

James Forde wrote: »

How much of an upgrade on the Z3 is this phone?

Still happy with my Z3 & it's performing well a year on........

But getting that itch to upgrade!

You're getting the fingerprint scanner, which is a big upgrade, but I believe the battery life is a downgrade from the Z3.. It's still good, but not 2-day good. No flap on the microusb port, faster (but warmer!) processor and a potentially better camera. I'd say it's a close one, and personally if coming from a year-old phone I would be keeping one eye on the horizon for a possible z6 with a snapdragon 820 and more efficient battery.

Slattsy wrote: »

Lads, do Sony plan to continue to bring out a new model each year?

They usually bring out a new flagship every 8 months or so although recent chatter suggests they may slow this a bit. Hard to tell at the moment as the mobile division in Sony is still losing money and is undergoing a restructuring.

In other news an update has rolled out to the Z5 for Three customers today, improving camera launch times, battery management, heat management etc

Got a lot of use out of the camera the other night and the update really improves the launch time of the camera app and the reliability of the camera hardware button (ie beforehand it was hit or miss whether holding the camera hardware button would actually do anything). Viewing the cameraroll from the app is also much quicker.

The phone is also a lot cooler when I get it back from my kids playing games on there.

It wasn't laggy before and it isn't laggy now.

Nice update.

On the xda forum there are reviews of cases.
I have an orzly case I got from amazon and it offers good protection without making it too bulky

Max Lee is doing a live stream on YouTube now. Interestingly he can't view 4k videos in 4k. Highest option is 1080p. So does this mean no support for 4k steaming ?

abitofacomedian wrote: »

I'm looking at replacing my Lumia 1020, and so far this seems like the best option. Does anyone have any opinion on how the camera quality is when compared the 1020, both for stills and video?

Also very apprehensive about moving to Android, but Windows Phone is dying and I really do not like ios, so it's the only option.

Thanks.

I made a similar move a few weeks ago from a Lumia 920 to the Z5. You can read my thoughts earlier in this thread. Android is definitely different but MS has developed great apps such as Outlook, Onedrive, OneNote, Excel etc.

The camera quality really is very good, and has improved more with a recent update. It can still be a little sluggish to activate but Shot-to-shot speeds are much improved. The dedicated camera button is a rare feature in the Android world and was something I wasn't willing to give up moving from Windows.

I was at a kids party today and the camera really proved itself. Image quality with the flash is surprisingly good. I got some great shots and the digital zoom using the volume keys was excellent. Digital zoom is usually terrible but it works great with the extra megapixels. Also lots of sharp shots with accurate focusing and no child-shaped blurs. You might notice extra noise compared to the 1020 when pixel peeping but photos just look good when viewing on the phone or when cast to a TV and that's what really matters.

Early reviews of the new Lumia 950 seem to really like the camera, unfortunately my feeling is that the platform has crashed and burned in the last year and might as well be starting from scratch. The camera would want to be outstanding in order to compensate for the other issues with the platform.

abitofacomedian wrote: »

Thanks, appreciate the perspective from another WP refugee. The dedicated camera button is one of those features that is a must have, don't know how phones are still made without one.

One more question, does the screen sensitivity have a "glove mode" like Lumias. Using that feature a lot this weather.

Can confirm it has a glove mode

Some good deals on the z5 compact at the moment but I'm really hesitant on pulling the trigger having looked at the z5 forum on the sony site - https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Xperia-Z5-Z5-Compact-Z5-Premium/bd-p/xperia_z5

It's just thread after thread of problems from over-heating to blurry photo image's to possible cracked screens. Just wondering if anyone who has the z5 or z5 compact come across any issues that has made you regret getting a sony. For a flagship phone they seem to have a lot of issue's but the size is exactly what I'm looking for.

Anyone spot any BF deals for the Z5? Best price I can see is on Amazon.de for €594. Should I wait till Cyber Monday?

I was looking at getting a sony z5 compact as well but Im fairly concerned about all the negativity surrounding the z5 series.

From looking at gsmarena and also the sony forum it looks like the z5 series is having lots of problems.

I searched for opinions on the samsung range s6 for example and didnt see have as much negativity or bad comments. I also looked at comments on the moto g which I have myself and all the comments were similiar to what I thought of the phone. Same way with the htc one x wifi issue that I had. Lots of others have the same problems.

The last thing I want to do is to buy a new phone and be tied into a contract and then have lots of problems with it.