Sony Xperia Z5 Compact - Is less really more?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,705 words · ~8 min read
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11 months ago the Droid Turbo became my
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daily driver phone not thanks to its slim sexy design outstanding camera or
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timely Android updates but rather because of its massive 3900 milliamp
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battery because while there might be things about the Droid Turbo that suck
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damn it it can suck all day and for some of us that's where the search for a
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companion device ends but there is
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another way to skin that particular cat and that's where today's device the
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Xperia Z5 compact gets very interesting
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in addition to the tried and true strap
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more double A to it strategy Sony has made some interesting Hardware choices
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that could just earn this device a spot
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in my front pocket for good
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Corsair's RMI series power supplies feature premium components for great
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performance with very low noise check out the link in the video description to
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learn more let's start with the physical overview because the Xperia Z5 compact
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is completely unlike any Flagship class phone that I've put my hands on in has
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it been 5 years since I made this video
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I bought an iPhone 4 it's actually small
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enough for me to operate it with one hand so at the the front you'll find a
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4.6 in IPS touchscreen along with a 5.1
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megapixel 1080p selfie camera a Sony logo and wow dual front-facing speakers
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okay they're not amazingly loud and they're kind of tiny sounding with less
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stereo separation than a larger device would have but this comes with the
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territory when you make the speaker smaller and closer together and Clarity
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particularly of dialogue was a very strong point compared to other devices
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I've used recently but then again these speakers are up against speakers that
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fire into your palm and firing into your palm has never been a successful
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strategy on the back is a Flash and a 23
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megapixel rear camera featuring a Sony sensor and recording modes ranging from
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4K at 30 FPS through 1080p at 60 and
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720p at 120 and then really not much
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else unless you count the orange dbrand skin on there at the top and bottom are
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a couple of mics for noise cancellation a headphone jack and a microe charging
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port I sure wish this had been type c on
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the right is the power button that doubles as an adequate if not especially
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fast or accurate fingerprint sensor an unusually positioned volume rocker that
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had me kind of scratching my head until I'd used the phone for a while and
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realized that having it out of the way like this is perfect the only reason
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that I'm messing around with the volume button on all my other phones is to
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reset it when I accidentally press the damn thing so Bravo Sony on on that one
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and then finally there's also a dedicated camera button that was a total
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pleasure to use especially once I figured out that it had a half press so
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I can lock in my focus and exposure before quickly snapping the shot on the
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left side you'll find a wrist strap Loop if you're into hanging Jewels off your
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phone or whatever and a watertight flap that helps the phone achieve its ip68
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Ingress Protection rating making it theoretically safe to have exposed to
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fresh or even chlorinated water for short Peri periods of time with that
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said I wouldn't bet your $500 investment given Sony's recent backpedaling act on
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just how safe it is to use your device underwater under that flap we'll find a
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nano SIM slot and wow another surprise a
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Micro SD slot now in some cases where
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reasonably priced higher capacity models exist I don't consider SD expansion a
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huge deal but since we're talking about a phone here that records 4K video and
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only has 32 gigs of internal storage I see this as a huge Boon for potential
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buyers and on that note I guess we haven't actually done the whole spec
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thing yet have we it's pretty darn similar to its Big Brothers the Z5 and
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the Z5 premium with a Snapdragon 810 8 core CPU beating at its heart at 2 GHz
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on the four more powerful cores that throttled pretty decisively during
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synthetic tests but at least had the decency to stay cool during normal
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operation and an adreno 430 graphics processor for RAM we're looking at a
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middling 2 gigs of ddr3l we've got the usual array of
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wireless tech with Bluetooth AC Wi-Fi and FM radio and inside is a 2700
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milliamp battery not that exceptional
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sounding but there's more here than meets the eye so let's get back to the
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screen for a minute Sony went all modern Flagship on some aspects of this phone
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with the reduction in system memory from 3 gigs in the full sizee models being
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one of the main spec differences but for the screen Sony went with a very
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conservative 720p LCD and I know this might be confusing
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to regular viewers who are used to me saying more is better give me more but I
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actually love this decision that's still a very respectable 323 pixels per inch
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about equivalent to Apple's Retina Display standard and the lower
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resolution combined with the smaller size means that the Z5 compact performed
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as well or better than the DROID turbo
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in my about how much battery do I have left at the end of each day test with
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usually anywhere from 15 to 30% left in
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the tank even after demanding days with long phone calls and even moderate GPS
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use absolutely fantastic not that going back to a small
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screen didn't have its drawbacks Sony
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opted for onscreen buttons something I liked when holding the phone in
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landscape mode but eats up valuable screen real estate um for every
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Improvement to the content consumption experience that I got from those
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front-facing speakers the smaller screen
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really clawed some of it back and man I
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had really forgotten how much space gets taken up by the number Row in swift key
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and suggested websites in a browser when you have so much less space to work with
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Sony's software fortunately didn't make life more difficult the minimum text
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size freed up some room and overall even though the marshmallow update hasn't
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arrived yet I was pleased by the responsiveness the visual style and the
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options provided in the settings menu there was nothing that really stood out
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to me as like wow Sony this is like super dumb which I guess leads us to the
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camera to be clear it's not the iPhone 6
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or 6s and it's not the Galaxy S6 Edge
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both of which offer faster camera amp launch times faster shutter speeds and
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faster saving times for pictures taken
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mid video and completed video files but
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the dedicated shutter button helps a fair bit with this and the photo results
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while not optically stabilized were good
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enough in most situations I think if I
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was designing the phone I might choose a less wide lens so I don't have to stand
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like three feet from a given subject but
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all in all it's a fairly minor complaint
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which leads us to conclusion time there are are some things I'm going to miss
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about my old daily driver taking the downgrades that come with our upgrades
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is one of the crosses that we Android people have to bear like the gestures to
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launch the flashlight when they work and
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Camera there we go and the notification Peak feature but overall the easy
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one-handed operation waterproofness and improved camera while retaining
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outstanding battery life have won me over I just can't wait to see what the
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marshmallow update and the new updated camera app bring to the table because I
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already loving this phone speaking of loving your
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phone the brand skins they make these
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awesome vinyl covers so you can practice safe phone love they not only make your
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phone look better you can choose from a wide variety of different skins and
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styles and use the configurator on their site to check out all the different
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options but they also protect it from incidental bump
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and scratches now to be clear you drop it screen down your dbrand skin is not
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going to do anything but if you're carrying it around in your pocket and
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you don't want it to get all scratched and scuffed a skin can be a perfect and
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lowcost option to keep your phone looking like the day it was new and they
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do more than just phones dbrand offers skins for game controllers consoles and
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even some computers and this is pretty
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cool coming very soon dbrand is going to be doing a limited edition run of kind
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of an LT color carbon fiber orange
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actually it's the same as the one that you saw on scrapyard War season 3 so
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stay tuned for that so check them out over at dbrand.com
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whatever I'm sure we'll have a link below me and it'll be linked in the
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video description and check out what your device will look like with one of
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their Precision cut gorgeous vinyl skins
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