Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Review - The 4K craze continues...
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,587 words · ~7 min read
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step right up folks come and see the amazing Experia Z5 premium featuring an
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astonishing 4K screen it's everything
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you've ever seen and done a 100 times but now in 4k yes friends 4K is the
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future and the future is
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now the simitar RGB from Corsair features 17 programmable buttons a
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12,000 DPI Optical sensor and a shape designed for comfort and MMO and MOBA
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games learn more at the link in the video description all right so I guess that
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silly intro bit gives away some of my concluding thoughts on the Z5 premium
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but I've got a bit of a routine to run through here so let's get that stuff out
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of the way first if you've seen one Sony Z series device you've pretty much seen
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them all at this point so the Z5 premium holds not not too many surprises up its
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sleeves it's got a blocky shape with an
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unadorned back panel save for the camera and flash a micro be charging port with
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wrist strap loop on the bottom a dedicated shutter button volume rocker
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and lock button with integrated fingerprint sensor on the right a
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headphone jack and noise cancellation microphone on the top and finally okay I
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guess it does have some surprises a Micro SD expansion slot along with a
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dual SIM card tray making this phone a
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winner for frequent Travelers who load up a lot of media for trips and have
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phone plans in multiple countries or even just people who want to save a few
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bucks here and there leveraging cheaper data on one carrier and cheaper voice on
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another for example at the front are dual forward-facing speakers a selfie
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camera and the main event the 4K screen
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but I'll talk more about that later the ergonomics of this phone were a bit of a
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mixed bag for me I mean I liked the design of the iPhone 4 a lot and I still
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do but one of the reasons that the the like heavy blocky solid feeling metal
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and glass design worked so well was that
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it was small and therefore easy to handle without dropping and this carried
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over quite nicely to my new daily driver the Xperia Z5 compact which I reviewed
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quite recently but at the size of the
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premium variant I mean we're talking about a 5.5 in display phone here with
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substantial forehead and Chin bar areas
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it is pretty darn unwieldly a curved back and lighter
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construction would likely go a long way towards remedying this for me but there
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are some trade-offs there as well to a
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man or lady every phone person who touched the Z5 premium or saw me using
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it said something along the lines of wow it really lives up to the premium name
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and that was without getting to experience the for Cas screen which I
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guess leads us pretty well into the screen first things first at this pixel
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density we're talking a whopping 800
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pixels per inch it's a freaking miracle that Sony managed to get a backlight to
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shine through the electronics at all the fact that they also managed to deliver a
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bright accurate display to boot is a
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freaking Miracle but there's some bad
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news about the screen as well in the time that I was using the phone it
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actually almost never ran at its 4K
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native resolution this is for a couple of reasons number one is that Android
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lollipop doesn't have proper 4K support so it'll only switch in a couple of apps
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two of which by the way are Sony's own album and video apps but even though
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that will be rectified in the future somewhat DPI support is kind of an issue
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too problem number two the fact that running at 4K puts unneeded strain on
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the phone's processor SA battery life means that even after the Android
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marshmallow update Sony will likely leave this limitation in place so there
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you go most of the time your 4K display
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will be running at 1080p instead something that in the past I would have
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like dropped the phone like a hot potato
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and said ah run away run away because running LCD displays that anything but
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native resolution has traditionally destroyed text sharpness but in the this
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case actually it was just fine and I wouldn't have even noticed that it has a
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4K display if you didn't tell me in fact 4K content even didn't look materially
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different from sharpened 1080p content at this size which raises the entirely
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new question of well what is the point then to which I would
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reply Android handset makers Sony included just don't know how else to
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differentiate from the crowd I mean look at the rest of the specs of the phone 2
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gz Snapdragon 810 CPU with adreno 430
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GPU 3 GB of RAM AC Wi-Fi NFC FM radio
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Quick Charge 2.0 fast charging fingerprint scanner I mean it's got
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everything but the kitchen sink and hell if Sony shipped it with one of those it
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would just be a great demonstration of the ip68 water and dust protection the
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thing would still work I mean that is some fairly standout stuff I mean the
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Snapdragon 810 is still a mini furnace that thermal throttle noticeably after
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only a few geek bench runs but performance is still well within the
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acceptable range and anyway what else is Sony supposed to use and there in lies
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the problem no matter what gimmick Android makers throw at their premium
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devices they can't differentiate from each other let alone from Apple I mean
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it wasn't that long ago that having front-facing speakers made headlines and
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if you had a solid camera on an Android device you were going to sell a lot of
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units but the Z5 premium has both of these
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things the camera which I actually glossed over earlier by the way is a 23
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megapixel affair with 4K 30fps video recording slowmo and it performed
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admirably in my typical full auto testing of the device but today those
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things amount to nothing Android phone
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makers have given it everything they've got and people are still buying iPhones
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in greater numbers than ever before so
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what do they do well they go back to to bigger and better numbers even if it's
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actually meaningless like even more meaningless than ever before like we
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turned it off 99% of the time
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meaningless it's kind of a shame though because from Reading other folks reviews
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of the Z5 premium it feels like Sony and
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therefore everyone covering the phone got so focused on the 4K display that
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they missed that this is also just a really solid device the 3430 milliamp
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battery got me comfortably through every day while I was using it and Sony's OS
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skin continues to make small evolutionary improvements without
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ruining the Android experience which is which is sweet but just not enough to
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win me over or to recommend that
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especially for the price wow you run out
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and buy one and on that subject dbrand
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makers of the highquality vinyl skins
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that you see on the devices in our phone
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reviews now I could spend some time telling you that dbrand is very
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affordable they have an expensive shipping around the freaking world their
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Skins are high quality and they're cut precisely and they've got a bunch of
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different styles but I'm not not going to tell you any of that stuff what I'm
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going to tell you today is that dbrand actually has a special exclusive 48 hour
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only color it is an orange carbon fiber the same one that you saw in scrapyard
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War season 3 on the back of my Mac book that's kind of like an LT orange so you
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guys are going to want to check that out at the link in the video description
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right below they can put it on a phone they can put it on a console they can
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put it on a computer pretty much you name it they'll put it on it unless it's
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like your grandmother I don't know why you would
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want a vinyl skin on your grandmother I mean I guess it would protect her from
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incidental scrapes and scratches and make her look
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better maybe there's something to this anyway guys thanks for watching if
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you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top
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right corner to check out the video where I show off the update to our 100
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plus terabyte actually it's like 20 23 *
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6 so yeah so it's well over 120 terab in
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its new configuration storage server we
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made some changes