I would think that display would be fantastic in a VR headset. Hopefully Sony comes out with one that fits the Z5 Premium. Outside of that, the resolution seems ridiculous.
The 4k model is still too tall , thought Sony will stop that. SD810 shouldn't be used in any new models at this point but pairing it with a 4k screen is worse, we'll see how it does. The 2 lesser models could have used higher res screens to be more appealing ,given Sony's pricing -always way high. Nice to see their power button gone, it always looked weird. In Q2 they shipped 7.2 million smartphones, got to wonder when they either give up or try to fight.
The 810 surely isn't the only option. I just can't believe they stuck a chip prone to overheating (or extreme thermal throttling at the very least) in the Z5 Compact. Good luck dissipating that much heat in a smallish device.
According to qualcomm's website, none of the SD 800,801,808 support more than 21MP camera sensors, which would make them unsuitable for these phones (the 800,801 have a too outdated featureset to begin with for a new high end phone), none of them would support a 4k display neither. Which would only leave the 805 or 810. And I'd suspect the 805 isn't much of an option due to being 32bit armv7 even though it would perform quite well (the 805 never was a very popular option compared to the older 800/801).
(Leaving aside that Snapdragon 805 is no combined SoC with Modem but only a Application processor. Pairing this with a one year old modem (the only available Fusion combination) would have made it more expensive to build, worse in radio features AND worse in power consumption compared to a 810...)
There are newer revisions of the 810 don't have this overheating issue. The OnePlus 2 uses it. I haven't checked if it actually fixes the issue however
there are no new versions of the SD810. HTC officially said that even they are using v2.1. So OnePlus was just doing their usual PR by saying that had an improved version...
virtually all phones using the sd810 are using the newer 2.1 version and still all of those phones are struggling with heat, throttling and have worse battery life than their predecessors.
the sd810 is a powerful chip with abysmal efficiency and hence isn't worthy of being used in a flagship device, especially in late 2015. finding an appropriate alternative is another matter, but spending 600 bucks on a phone with a power sucking chip, when a wholly improved sd820 is only a couple months away seems quite stupid.
Will, no body knows about real world usage... but according to one previewer on YouTube, he tried shooting 4K video for 10minutes and the device didn't overheat... So I guess Sony did something with it...
Power button is still there and still in the same location. I do like the fact that it's now countersunk in. My issue is with the volume button. I have no idea why they decided to move it. It'll now be right where my car mount's arms sit.
I also don't see any doors on the right side. That's where the sim card use to go. I'm assuming the microSD slot and sim card doors are now on the left. Hope they kept the magnetic charging connection.
nope, no magnetic charger pins. it sucks, it was disco'd from the z3+/z4 and on. i have the sony deck that connects via the pins and its brilliantly functional. except now when i get a new phone, i have to resort to plugging it back in while in my car. :(
I agree with most of what you say, and as an owner of the Z3 I can confirm the phone should be less tall. I guess they had no good alternate options to the power hungry Snapdragon, though. As an aside, I like the power button a lot on the Z3, even if it looks weird. It is very tactile and is placed near where your thumb naturally goes to grasp the phone in one hand, so it's very easy to activate the screen in the dark, and the button itself has a nice feel to it. I suppose it's one of those rare cases where function wins out over form.
I bought a Z3 Compact specifically because it was cheaper than similar flagships at a more reasonable price. The Z5 will probably be $649 and the Z5P will be closer to $799 I'm guessing
Unfortunately it's an LCD panel, not OLED. Likely limited to 60Hz (too low), and will only work in Low Persistence driving by pulsing the backlight, which adds latency (because you have to wait for the slowest possible pixel switching time before you can pulse the backlight).
Well Sony made phones with great battery lives since Z3 generation. And is also promising 2-day battery life (which was definitely the case with Z3C). May be they are overestimating Z5P, but still, it should be enough for an active one day use.
FWIW according to heise it displays upscaled FHD content only anyway (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Sony-Z5-Pre... so not much of a problem for the gpu... If you needed some proof you can't tell the difference between FHD and UHD at that size anyway look no further, though I don't think I have to tell you how much sense I think such a upscaling solution really makes...
Well they are claiming EVERYTHING (apps, videos) gets rendered to a FHD resolution, then scaled up. They certainly don't say it makes sense :-). sorry the link didn't work due to brackets, another try: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Sony-Z5-Pre...
btw sony has confirmed the 4k display is just for the lolz (ok my words not theirs). But they confirmed android itself is running at FHD (with ordinary apps seemingly not knowing the resolution is actually higher), hence everything being upscaled. The only exception being the built-in camera and video apps, which should be able to use the full resolution.
I'm forced to use a iPhone 5S for work and I can't stand it. I don't see how anyone can be productive on something so tiny. It doesn't help that we use the Otterbox that gives it the ergonomics of a brick. We had even smaller BlackBerries before, but at least you had the physical keyboard so typing wasn't as painful.
Excited about a resolution density that you won't perceive a difference compared to any 1440p screen? And dont even try to tell you have mantis shrimp eagle vision that can see individuals pixels above 450dpi.
The compact works out to be a ~320 ppi/dpi. That's basically the same as all the retina iPhones other than the 6+. For an IPS screen it's not a bad dpi. AMOLED screens, especially ones that use a non-standard rgrb or some other color arrangement do seem to benefit from a bit higher ppi than that but it seems to be good on an IPS screen judging from my iPhone 5s.
I am a bit disappointed that a "compact" phone has a 4.6 inch screen. That's roughly the same size as my wife's old Nokia 920, and that still seems like a pretty big phone. I am still excited to have a current gen phone with high end specs that is sub 5 inch. That is pretty much unheard of for phones. Sub 5 inch phones end up being mid to low end phones.
Any word on if it is water resistant like a lot of their previous phones? My wife picked up a refurb Z1s from t-mobile after she got sick of the lack of windows phone apps. We liked the water resistance with a 3 year old and it was more reasonably sized with still decent specs and was pretty cheap.
I wonder what the availability will be like. Their previous phones haven't exactly been readily available from the major carriers in the US.
BTW, take a look at the pricing on the UK site. £549/599/699 for Z5C/Z5/Z5 Premium. That's US$ 840/917/1070. Of course European prices have higher taxes included, but still. And those are unlocked prices without a contract. The pricing is just ridiculous. I paid 450€ ($500) for my Xperia Z1C when it became available in early 2014. Now they expect people to shell out almost 70% more money for an updated device? At least for once we in Europe get more stuff than you guys in the States.
They looked like it in the pics but the article didn't mention it. I see in the UK specs that it's a capless usb port which is nice. We ended up ordering the charging dock for my wife's Z1s because taking off the cover to charge is a bit of a pain.
You really can't compare the Z1C to well...any of the other Xperia compacts. Why? Cause the Z1C was the only one that didn't launch at the same time as the flagships. It released 6 months after, so it had a lower price. It was old when it launched. The pricing isn't any different with the Z5 series release as any other release. Although Z2 never got a compact.
Also Europe tends to get a lot of stuff compared to the US. Cars, music, games, drinks, etc. Americans don't notice, cause many simply don't look outside their borders. Unlike Europeans, who get flooded with American culture, products, etc.
The pricing on the german page is 549/699/799€ so it'll be probably around the same in US$, maybe a bit more... The prices on the UK page seem off, the z3+ is £499 and 699€, so the z5 should be around £499 too and not £599
As others have already noted the Z5C (and the Z3C before it) aren't any bigger, in physical dimensions, than the Z1C. It just has a bigger screen, 4.6" vs 4.3".
So if you're comfortable with the size of the Z1C you'll enjoy the Z5C as well I'd imagine.
As an owner of a Z3C myself I absolutely agree about the resolution, there's no need for anything higher than 720p. I'd be happy to take more memory and storage for my next upgrade though (and the Z5C did get a storage upgrade).
Please fix the sensor info. 21MP IMX230 is a bit smaller at 1/2.4". This one is 1/2.3" & 23mp . Also pixel pitch should be around ~1.14 um if you do the math. Since the part number is not available yet, you probably should list it as IMX*** lol Thanks.
Thanks for that, I don't know what I was thinking. As for the 1.12 vs 1.14 thing, the optical format is not really an exact thing and there are really no actual standards for how exact the relation between it and the sensor dimensions is. We're likely looking at an IMX230-like sensor which is higher res and subsequently a larger sensor at the same pixel size.
Please review these, Sony phones always seem to be left out of Anandtech reviews, most other sites suck and are pretty lackluster when compared to you guys.
Hell, the only other useful reviews I can think of are those made by Erica Griffin
I would love to know. It's not mentioned in the PR which isn't really a good sign, but they're such high end devices that I would think they would. Will update if info is available.
There's no mention of that for photos, but for video they call it SteadyShot with Intelligent Active Mode. Whether that's any good id another question.
there hasn't been on any of the other Z series... its unlikely they added it for this one. Sony's own handling of stabilization is great, my take away is that they dont need OIS. if you dont have a Z phone visit a store and try the camera, its fast and steady..better than most/all others.
Given how happy I still am with my Xperia Z2 a year and a half in (the only phone I know of that seems like a real upgrade would be the Galaxy S6, and I should know given that I sell smartphones for a living), I'm inclined to be optimistic about this. Sony's designs are far underrated - the Z3/Z3+ are both great designs, and the addition of waterproof cover-less charging sockets on the Z3+ is a huge win. Moving to a default 32GB of storage (and not just for a single flagship) is pretty huge too. And it's about time that Sony moves to a new camera sensor, given that they've had the same one for a few years now. And first to a 4K cellphone? Sure, it's a gimmick, but it's a pretty ballsy move from a small phone maker.
I can't help but have my optimism dampened a bit by the Snapdragon 810 though. Hopefully this is the latest revision, but it's still in my eyes a worse SOC than the 805, and not really any better than the 801. Really, really looking forward to the 820.
Strictly speaking Sony has had waterproof cover-less charging sockets since the original Z. The magnetic charging port is awesome and probably the thing I'd miss the most with the Z5, as there's a notable difference in amount of fiddling required with a plug vs. contact charging.
I hope Sony offer wireless charging options going forward.
Wife currently has the Z3 compact, and tbh it's pretty hard to get excited about the Z5 compact as it's near identical other then having 810 not 800 and we all know 810 isn't one of qualcomm's best chips.
The 1080p is the one to go. Once the DPI is above 400 (423 in this case), anymore will be a strain on the battery with very, very little benefit. The 5.5" should have a 1440p, 4k is BS.
I think Sony have only done the premium as a technical exercise / advertising stunt over thinking people need a 5.5" phone with a 4k screen. They're clearly struggling to get out of the shadow of Samsung and Apple and needed to grab some headlines.
I've had a Z3 for about a year now and it's been the best phone I've ever had. Hope more people consider Sony phones because they are head and shoulders above the rest IMO.
Putting aside resolutions and omissions for a moment, I've been waiting for a manufacturer to do this for years. A small, medium and large flagship phone launch which are very nearly identical except for battery size and screen resolution. Well done Sony.
Now, for the Z6 launch, please give me wireless charging and a removable battery and you'll have a new fan and a bunch of sales from the old Samsung brigade!
This is exactly right. But instead anyone that isn't a phablet is shipped with low tier CPUs, no storage and awful camera. There are some solid mid range-low range units and that's fine. But I want performance while also not having the phone be significantly larger than my hand.
The 720/1080p options are also great. It'd be nice to easily get more than half a day's worth of battery life seeing as a ppi over 480 really is just a waste of resources, at this point at least what with battery and power efficiency what it is.
This looks to be a nearly perfect set of three phones, except for the 4K screen on the large one. If that was 1440p it would be perfect.
I personally LOVE the 1080p screen on the regular model, I've been wishing a company would release a 1080p, waterproof phone with a great camera. This seems to tick every box I care about in a phone.
Definitely looking forward to the reviews. Might get me away from the G4... assuming I can get it on Verizon in the states.
I, along with a lot of people, were really looking forward to the Z5. Best form factor and not gigantic, no pointless 1440p display that just sucks battery, great design, I'd prefer stock 5.1 but sony's UI isn't as bad as others. Amazing camera quality.
But am I the only one who's very put off by the inclusion of the 510? I know a lot of the hate is partly warranted, but some of it is very exaggerated. But in the long run it's going to be obsolete so much faster than so many other SoCs. Very disheartening.
The yellow Z5 Compact looks really nice(at least in renders) Reminds me of the yellow Lumia 920 in color.
I am considering the Compact as a suitable 920 replacement now, but I'll wait to see how it performs(both in general perofrmance and in the battery department) The camera has nice specs, but I'm sceptical of Sonys processing. The early samples looked decent, albeit a little unsharp in the corners.
Still not perfect! why not just wait for the 820! they released the nearly identical phone only a couple months ago. I love the fingerprint power button, the waterproofing, the capless USB - really sad they dropped support for their proprietary charging pins without replacing it with a good wireless charging feature...and still no IR.
keep the z5/z5p/z5c exactly as they are and add IR and usb-less or wireless charging and we have a perfect phone. still no IR since the ZL...sucks
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0megapart!cle - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
I would think that display would be fantastic in a VR headset. Hopefully Sony comes out with one that fits the Z5 Premium. Outside of that, the resolution seems ridiculous.jjj - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The 4k model is still too tall , thought Sony will stop that. SD810 shouldn't be used in any new models at this point but pairing it with a 4k screen is worse, we'll see how it does. The 2 lesser models could have used higher res screens to be more appealing ,given Sony's pricing -always way high.Nice to see their power button gone, it always looked weird.
In Q2 they shipped 7.2 million smartphones, got to wonder when they either give up or try to fight.
jeffkibuule - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Yeah, I feel like they may have jumped the gun a bit early with the Snapdragon 820 just around the corner.wavetrex - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
820-based Z5+, Z5+ compact, Z5+Ultra Premium Super Califragilistic incoming in 3.... 2.... 1....Xajel - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
820 will not be ready till late 2015 at best timing, thought most 820 device will launch in 1H16.. so the only option now is 810cwolf78 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
The 810 surely isn't the only option. I just can't believe they stuck a chip prone to overheating (or extreme thermal throttling at the very least) in the Z5 Compact. Good luck dissipating that much heat in a smallish device.mczak - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
According to qualcomm's website, none of the SD 800,801,808 support more than 21MP camera sensors, which would make them unsuitable for these phones (the 800,801 have a too outdated featureset to begin with for a new high end phone), none of them would support a 4k display neither. Which would only leave the 805 or 810. And I'd suspect the 805 isn't much of an option due to being 32bit armv7 even though it would perform quite well (the 805 never was a very popular option compared to the older 800/801).rDeck - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link
(Leaving aside that Snapdragon 805 is no combined SoC with Modem but only a Application processor. Pairing this with a one year old modem (the only available Fusion combination) would have made it more expensive to build, worse in radio features AND worse in power consumption compared to a 810...)ishould - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
There are newer revisions of the 810 don't have this overheating issue. The OnePlus 2 uses it. I haven't checked if it actually fixes the issue howeversyxbit - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
there are no new versions of the SD810.HTC officially said that even they are using v2.1. So OnePlus was just doing their usual PR by saying that had an improved version...
fokka - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
virtually all phones using the sd810 are using the newer 2.1 version and still all of those phones are struggling with heat, throttling and have worse battery life than their predecessors.the sd810 is a powerful chip with abysmal efficiency and hence isn't worthy of being used in a flagship device, especially in late 2015. finding an appropriate alternative is another matter, but spending 600 bucks on a phone with a power sucking chip, when a wholly improved sd820 is only a couple months away seems quite stupid.
Xajel - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Will, no body knows about real world usage... but according to one previewer on YouTube, he tried shooting 4K video for 10minutes and the device didn't overheat... So I guess Sony did something with it...khanikun - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Power button is still there and still in the same location. I do like the fact that it's now countersunk in. My issue is with the volume button. I have no idea why they decided to move it. It'll now be right where my car mount's arms sit.I also don't see any doors on the right side. That's where the sim card use to go. I'm assuming the microSD slot and sim card doors are now on the left. Hope they kept the magnetic charging connection.
Urbanos - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
nope, no magnetic charger pins. it sucks, it was disco'd from the z3+/z4 and on. i have the sony deck that connects via the pins and its brilliantly functional. except now when i get a new phone, i have to resort to plugging it back in while in my car. :(WagonWheelsRX8 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I agree with most of what you say, and as an owner of the Z3 I can confirm the phone should be less tall. I guess they had no good alternate options to the power hungry Snapdragon, though.As an aside, I like the power button a lot on the Z3, even if it looks weird. It is very tactile and is placed near where your thumb naturally goes to grasp the phone in one hand, so it's very easy to activate the screen in the dark, and the button itself has a nice feel to it. I suppose it's one of those rare cases where function wins out over form.
ishould - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I bought a Z3 Compact specifically because it was cheaper than similar flagships at a more reasonable price. The Z5 will probably be $649 and the Z5P will be closer to $799 I'm guessingedzieba - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Unfortunately it's an LCD panel, not OLED. Likely limited to 60Hz (too low), and will only work in Low Persistence driving by pulsing the backlight, which adds latency (because you have to wait for the slowest possible pixel switching time before you can pulse the backlight).extide - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Looks like Sony is playing it safe and testing the market with the Z5 / Z5 Prem being nearly the same except for display. Should be interesting.akaskar - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Z5P frame is made of steel, not aluminium as is the case for Z5(C). Also, Z5 and Z5C have kind of matte glass on the back, whereas Z5P has glossyextide - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Well, if they are actually announcing clock-speeds, than it should be pretty close to being released. Should be pretty awesome, IMHO.It would be really interesting if they did a big.LITTLE setup with custom core ip...
Le Geek - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Well I believe you meant to comment on the snapdragon 820 article???Sttm - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Snapdragon 810 powered 4k display, what genius thought up that combo.akaskar - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Well Sony made phones with great battery lives since Z3 generation. And is also promising 2-day battery life (which was definitely the case with Z3C). May be they are overestimating Z5P, but still, it should be enough for an active one day use.mczak - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
FWIW according to heise it displays upscaled FHD content only anyway (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Sony-Z5-Pre... so not much of a problem for the gpu...If you needed some proof you can't tell the difference between FHD and UHD at that size anyway look no further, though I don't think I have to tell you how much sense I think such a upscaling solution really makes...
OCedHrt - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
That doesn't make any sense at all. You can record 4K content directly on your phone. Though I bet Sony is betting on most people not doing that.mczak - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Well they are claiming EVERYTHING (apps, videos) gets rendered to a FHD resolution, then scaled up. They certainly don't say it makes sense :-).sorry the link didn't work due to brackets, another try: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Sony-Z5-Pre...
mczak - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
btw sony has confirmed the 4k display is just for the lolz (ok my words not theirs). But they confirmed android itself is running at FHD (with ordinary apps seemingly not knowing the resolution is actually higher), hence everything being upscaled. The only exception being the built-in camera and video apps, which should be able to use the full resolution.sonicmerlin - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
In what universe is 4.6 inches "compact"? Why can't they go back to the Z1's 4.3" size?I'm actually excited to see what 4k looks like in a mobile device.
jjj - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The Z1 Compact was 127 x 64.9 x 9.5 mm so just minor differences in body size.fokka - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
how about 4.3" and smaller bezels then?Kepe - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Yeah the Z1C is actually exactly the same size, except for thickness. Z5C is 0.6mm thinner.Pissedoffyouth - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Buy an iPhone 5 or something kiddocwolf78 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I'm forced to use a iPhone 5S for work and I can't stand it. I don't see how anyone can be productive on something so tiny. It doesn't help that we use the Otterbox that gives it the ergonomics of a brick. We had even smaller BlackBerries before, but at least you had the physical keyboard so typing wasn't as painful.Human Bass - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Excited about a resolution density that you won't perceive a difference compared to any 1440p screen? And dont even try to tell you have mantis shrimp eagle vision that can see individuals pixels above 450dpi.lilmoe - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Just when we were arguing that QHD was nuts........... Way to go in "being cool" at the wrong thing, Sony.OCedHrt - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Apple users love their "Retina" display that the OS does't even let you use. There'll be a market for it, hopefully.shabby - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Could of swore the z5 compact has a 2700mah battery.Brandon Chester - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
You'd be right. Listing in Wh was right, mAh too low. Thanks.kpb321 - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The compact works out to be a ~320 ppi/dpi. That's basically the same as all the retina iPhones other than the 6+. For an IPS screen it's not a bad dpi. AMOLED screens, especially ones that use a non-standard rgrb or some other color arrangement do seem to benefit from a bit higher ppi than that but it seems to be good on an IPS screen judging from my iPhone 5s.I am a bit disappointed that a "compact" phone has a 4.6 inch screen. That's roughly the same size as my wife's old Nokia 920, and that still seems like a pretty big phone. I am still excited to have a current gen phone with high end specs that is sub 5 inch. That is pretty much unheard of for phones. Sub 5 inch phones end up being mid to low end phones.
Any word on if it is water resistant like a lot of their previous phones? My wife picked up a refurb Z1s from t-mobile after she got sick of the lack of windows phone apps. We liked the water resistance with a 3 year old and it was more reasonably sized with still decent specs and was pretty cheap.
I wonder what the availability will be like. Their previous phones haven't exactly been readily available from the major carriers in the US.
Kepe - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
They all have IP65 and IP68 certification. So it's the same level of dust and water proofing as the previous Xperia Z models.Availability in the US looks bleak.. Take a look at the sonymobile.com sites with different markets selected..
US: http://www.sonymobile.com/us/products/phones/
UK: http://www.sonymobile.com/gb/products/phones/
BTW, take a look at the pricing on the UK site. £549/599/699 for Z5C/Z5/Z5 Premium. That's US$ 840/917/1070. Of course European prices have higher taxes included, but still. And those are unlocked prices without a contract. The pricing is just ridiculous. I paid 450€ ($500) for my Xperia Z1C when it became available in early 2014. Now they expect people to shell out almost 70% more money for an updated device?
At least for once we in Europe get more stuff than you guys in the States.
kpb321 - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
They looked like it in the pics but the article didn't mention it. I see in the UK specs that it's a capless usb port which is nice. We ended up ordering the charging dock for my wife's Z1s because taking off the cover to charge is a bit of a pain.khanikun - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
You really can't compare the Z1C to well...any of the other Xperia compacts. Why? Cause the Z1C was the only one that didn't launch at the same time as the flagships. It released 6 months after, so it had a lower price. It was old when it launched. The pricing isn't any different with the Z5 series release as any other release. Although Z2 never got a compact.Also Europe tends to get a lot of stuff compared to the US. Cars, music, games, drinks, etc. Americans don't notice, cause many simply don't look outside their borders. Unlike Europeans, who get flooded with American culture, products, etc.
broetchenrackete - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
The pricing on the german page is 549/699/799€ so it'll be probably around the same in US$, maybe a bit more... The prices on the UK page seem off, the z3+ is £499 and 699€, so the z5 should be around £499 too and not £599JeremyInNZ - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Yes, the new Z5's are waterproof.Exodite - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
As others have already noted the Z5C (and the Z3C before it) aren't any bigger, in physical dimensions, than the Z1C. It just has a bigger screen, 4.6" vs 4.3".So if you're comfortable with the size of the Z1C you'll enjoy the Z5C as well I'd imagine.
As an owner of a Z3C myself I absolutely agree about the resolution, there's no need for anything higher than 720p. I'd be happy to take more memory and storage for my next upgrade though (and the Z5C did get a storage upgrade).
babadivad - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
If the Premium comes to T-Mobile, this will be my next phone.dmn666 - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Please fix the sensor info. 21MP IMX230 is a bit smaller at 1/2.4". This one is 1/2.3" & 23mp . Also pixel pitch should be around ~1.14 um if you do the math. Since the part number is not available yet, you probably should list it as IMX*** lol Thanks.http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/IS/sensor1/img/...
Brandon Chester - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Thanks for that, I don't know what I was thinking. As for the 1.12 vs 1.14 thing, the optical format is not really an exact thing and there are really no actual standards for how exact the relation between it and the sensor dimensions is. We're likely looking at an IMX230-like sensor which is higher res and subsequently a larger sensor at the same pixel size.OCedHrt - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
If you check the review at GSMArena, it's actually a 25 mp sensor, so definitely not a IMX230.Brandon Chester - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
GSMArena is wrong. Sony's website and PR confirm they're all 23MP.Fidelator - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Please review these, Sony phones always seem to be left out of Anandtech reviews, most other sites suck and are pretty lackluster when compared to you guys.Hell, the only other useful reviews I can think of are those made by Erica Griffin
amdwilliam1985 - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
agreed, Erica Griffin makes some of the finest reviews on youtube.babadivad - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Is there OIS on these?unialie - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I would like to know this too.Brandon Chester - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I would love to know. It's not mentioned in the PR which isn't really a good sign, but they're such high end devices that I would think they would. Will update if info is available.OCedHrt - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
There's no mention of that for photos, but for video they call it SteadyShot with Intelligent Active Mode. Whether that's any good id another question.Urbanos - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
there hasn't been on any of the other Z series... its unlikely they added it for this one. Sony's own handling of stabilization is great, my take away is that they dont need OIS. if you dont have a Z phone visit a store and try the camera, its fast and steady..better than most/all others.Valantar - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Given how happy I still am with my Xperia Z2 a year and a half in (the only phone I know of that seems like a real upgrade would be the Galaxy S6, and I should know given that I sell smartphones for a living), I'm inclined to be optimistic about this. Sony's designs are far underrated - the Z3/Z3+ are both great designs, and the addition of waterproof cover-less charging sockets on the Z3+ is a huge win. Moving to a default 32GB of storage (and not just for a single flagship) is pretty huge too. And it's about time that Sony moves to a new camera sensor, given that they've had the same one for a few years now. And first to a 4K cellphone? Sure, it's a gimmick, but it's a pretty ballsy move from a small phone maker.I can't help but have my optimism dampened a bit by the Snapdragon 810 though. Hopefully this is the latest revision, but it's still in my eyes a worse SOC than the 805, and not really any better than the 801. Really, really looking forward to the 820.
Exodite - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Strictly speaking Sony has had waterproof cover-less charging sockets since the original Z. The magnetic charging port is awesome and probably the thing I'd miss the most with the Z5, as there's a notable difference in amount of fiddling required with a plug vs. contact charging.I hope Sony offer wireless charging options going forward.
OCedHrt - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
If only quick charging was supported on that port.Exodite - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
It is:https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Xperia-Z3-Compact/Q...
Dribble - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Wife currently has the Z3 compact, and tbh it's pretty hard to get excited about the Z5 compact as it's near identical other then having 810 not 800 and we all know 810 isn't one of qualcomm's best chips.Human Bass - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
The 1080p is the one to go. Once the DPI is above 400 (423 in this case), anymore will be a strain on the battery with very, very little benefit. The 5.5" should have a 1440p, 4k is BS.Coup27 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I think Sony have only done the premium as a technical exercise / advertising stunt over thinking people need a 5.5" phone with a 4k screen. They're clearly struggling to get out of the shadow of Samsung and Apple and needed to grab some headlines.I've had a Z3 for about a year now and it's been the best phone I've ever had. Hope more people consider Sony phones because they are head and shoulders above the rest IMO.
[-Stash-] - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Putting aside resolutions and omissions for a moment, I've been waiting for a manufacturer to do this for years. A small, medium and large flagship phone launch which are very nearly identical except for battery size and screen resolution. Well done Sony.Now, for the Z6 launch, please give me wireless charging and a removable battery and you'll have a new fan and a bunch of sales from the old Samsung brigade!
mortimerr - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
This is exactly right. But instead anyone that isn't a phablet is shipped with low tier CPUs, no storage and awful camera. There are some solid mid range-low range units and that's fine. But I want performance while also not having the phone be significantly larger than my hand.The 720/1080p options are also great. It'd be nice to easily get more than half a day's worth of battery life seeing as a ppi over 480 really is just a waste of resources, at this point at least what with battery and power efficiency what it is.
phoenix_rizzen - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Now if only they had hardware slider keyboards, it would be the perfect line-up. Something for everyone, refreshed once per year.shadarlo - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
This looks to be a nearly perfect set of three phones, except for the 4K screen on the large one. If that was 1440p it would be perfect.I personally LOVE the 1080p screen on the regular model, I've been wishing a company would release a 1080p, waterproof phone with a great camera. This seems to tick every box I care about in a phone.
Definitely looking forward to the reviews. Might get me away from the G4... assuming I can get it on Verizon in the states.
mortimerr - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
I, along with a lot of people, were really looking forward to the Z5. Best form factor and not gigantic, no pointless 1440p display that just sucks battery, great design, I'd prefer stock 5.1 but sony's UI isn't as bad as others. Amazing camera quality.But am I the only one who's very put off by the inclusion of the 510? I know a lot of the hate is partly warranted, but some of it is very exaggerated. But in the long run it's going to be obsolete so much faster than so many other SoCs. Very disheartening.
Laxaa - Sunday, September 6, 2015 - link
The yellow Z5 Compact looks really nice(at least in renders) Reminds me of the yellow Lumia 920 in color.I am considering the Compact as a suitable 920 replacement now, but I'll wait to see how it performs(both in general perofrmance and in the battery department) The camera has nice specs, but I'm sceptical of Sonys processing. The early samples looked decent, albeit a little unsharp in the corners.
Urbanos - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link
Still not perfect! why not just wait for the 820! they released the nearly identical phone only a couple months ago.I love the fingerprint power button, the waterproofing, the capless USB - really sad they dropped support for their proprietary charging pins without replacing it with a good wireless charging feature...and still no IR.
keep the z5/z5p/z5c exactly as they are and add IR and usb-less or wireless charging and we have a perfect phone. still no IR since the ZL...sucks