Sony have made a bold statement today by announcing a new trio of flagship phones in its Xperia series, with the Xperia Z5, the Xperia Z5 Compact and Xperia X5 Premium all representing what the company hopes will be a strong comeback for its struggling mobile division.
The most exciting device out of the bunch is undoubtedly the Xperia Z5 Premium, which has the honor of being the world’s first smartphone that boasts 4K ultra-HD. Housing a staggering 5.5-inch, 806-ppi display, the Z5 Premium is precisely the smartphone for anyone who has held their device and thought “this is good and all, but it isn’t causing my eyeballs to melt whilst looking at it.” If you fall within that category – and in a world in which it looks like 4K will be the default resolution of the near future, I suspect a lot of you do – then the Xperia Z5 Premium should certainly pique your interest.
But how does the Z5 Premium stack up outside of its gorgeous display? Well all three devices in the Z5 family feature very similar specs, with them each running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor, each equipped with up to 32GB of internal storage that can then be expanded using a microSD and each boasting high-resolution audio chips. One of few alterations is the size of the battery in each device, as the Premium model would have a tough time maintaining even a mediocre battery life running a 4K resolution with the Compact’s 2,700mAh battery.
The Z5 Premium instead has a 3,430mAh battery, though Sony have stated that they are optimizing its battery life by having the device’s CPU power down whenever it can, meaning that it can therefore survive for long as its chip isn’t constantly feeding its high resolution. This would also help combat overheating, which was a problem in previous Xperia handsets.
Available in gold, black and chrome, the latter option for the Z5 Premium also serves as a surprisingly clear mirror, a unique design choice that gives the device an, err, premium look, whilst also presumably making it a nightmare to keep clean. Sony has also described the Z5 line’s 0.03 autofocus as the “world’s fastest” autofocus ever featured in a smartphone, another confident statement from a company that clearly has a lot riding on the Z5 family being a success among consumers.
Fortunately, it seems like that could be the case. The Z5 Premium is particularly inveigling, and I can imagine that for many the 4K display will make it a very attractive option.
