Review Sony Xperia Z5 Premium: 4K resolution justifies its astronomical price?

The Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is the first smartphone with a screen resolution 4K (Ultra HD). This results in a density of pixels per inch monstrous: 807 dpi. We have had the opportunity to test the new smartphone from the Japanese manufacturer to see if your screen 4K justifies its price.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Availability and Pricing

Sony announced Xperia Z5 Premium September 2 during the IFA in Berlin. The device was presented by the Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact.

The suggested retail price of Xperia Z5 Premium is 799 euros, or 100 euros more than its predecessor, Xperia Z5.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Design and finishing

The Xperia Pemium Z5 has not changed much its visual design classic omni balance, which is a bit frustrating for fans of the series. When the first rumors that Sony would manufacture a smartphone with a screen resolution 4K was also expected to innovate around with the design, but that has not happened.

The only differences Xperia Z5 Premium compared to other members of the Xperia family is the inclusion of the name of the line in the frame and that the fingerprint reader is in the button to turn the dipositive. At the front you can see the proximity sensor, the LED notification, the front camera and stereo speakers. It notes that the speaker calls also works as a speaker environment.

Looking closely at the Xperia Z5 Premium is clear that the use of the front with respect to the screen could be higher if the smartphone Sony Premium resembled not so much the old Xperia Z Ultra. At the top of the screen hardly see the manufacturer’s name printed.

Xperia Z5 Premium screen is 5.5 inches on the right side has the power button and direct access to the camera, volume control is somewhat lower because it has added the fingerprint reader.

On the left side we find the new logo screen-printed and microSD slot and Nanosim cards, all very similar to what we had seen on the Xperia X5. At the bottom we have the same microUSB port from previous models in the series and the hole for a safety cable. The entrance of the headset is on top.

At the rear, Sony has opted to include a glass mirror with metal frame. The mirror finish allows us to use the back as if it were itself a mirror. The trouble is that just gets dirty, like a mirror.

The camera is positioned on the left side at the top, has 23MP and uses the Exmor RS sensor. The LED flash appears under the camera lens.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Screen

The Xperia Z5 Premium is the first smartphone in the world with 4K screen and a diagonal of 5.5 inches. This is the smartphone with higher density of pixels per inch to date reaches 807 dpi. Despite its excellent sharpness, optimal contrast and color saturation; at a distance of a few centimeters of the eyes it is impossible to tell the difference enters the screen of Xperia Z5 Premium and an Edge Galaxy S6 +, for example.

According to the 1990 publication in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, the human eye has the ability to distinguish a resolution of 287 dpi (see the study explained by scientist and photographer Bryan Jones here). Therefore, the fact that we do not perceive a difference between the quality of the screen Xperia Z5 Premium and its main competitors is linked to our limitations as human beings.

Now if you ask me if the screen is good, do I have to say that of course it is, after all, the TV division of Sony is the largest investor in research displays and manages to get all that knowledge to smartphones of the company. However I must say that the screen Xperia Z5 Premium 4K acts most of the time as a FullHD display. This is according to a thorough test conducted by GSM Arena website where they put the under the lens of a microscope screen and could see the architecture of it.

The test confirmed that the 5.5-inch screen smartphone has, in fact, a 4K resolution of 2160 x 3840 pixels, some screenshots were also made in resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels. It could be shown that the device uses the full HD resolution most of the time. This is because the Japanese manufacturer has chosen to activate the maximum resolution only for content that requires more pixels on the screen. Basically because Google Play Store does not have many applications that support 4K. Moreover this decision directly affects the battery life.

Taking into account this, you can enjoy 4K image quality for video streaming applications that support this resolution as Netflix, Youtube or for recordings you’ve made with 4K video mode. The Xperia Z5 Premium has a feature called “Upscale” that converts photos and videos to a quality close to 4K. The benefit of this can be seen in everyday life when we compare images in low resolution (720p) displayed on smartphones with screens Full HD and 4K. Devices using the Upscale characteristic tend to show details and hence better images.

Durantes ten days that has lasted the test, the Xperia Z5 Premium has proved a perfect smartphone for multimedia content, playing games and surfing the internet. This is due in large part to the quality of your display and audio. And, as this smartphone has been widely criticized for using the Snapdragon 810 processor, you’re probably wondering: All these actions will drain the battery much, right?

First, the software Xperia Z5 Premium was optimized to reduce CPU frequency and control hardware sobrecalientamente. In addition, Sony’s engineers have managed to move work to the GPU processor directly when the screen is active, so as to transfer all the graphics work previously calculated in the CPU (which they say represents 15% of the application process screen) graphics module. Imagine a display module as the ARA Project, for example, this is the only responsible in terms of power consumption of the display. Thus it was possible to save the processor and thus, energy.

To give you an idea while watching the complete film “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” which takes about unnecessary 2 hours and 50 minutes, with 4K option Netflix and a brightness of 100%, was consumed just over 50% of the battery.

Sony has marked the frontiers of research on smartphone screens and this will make many more manufacturers will follow in its wake. I have had the opportunity to experience virtual reality with Samsung Galaxy S6 with WQHD resolution and I am certain that the highest density of pixels per inch enhances the experience. I’m sure this is just the beginning.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Special Functions

Sony brings the first in its line Xperia Z, the ability to unlock screen using a fingerprint reader as well as payments through Pay Android. What makes this technology is original, according to their engineers, it is that the reader is located in a point of easy access for the user.

The fact that the button is on the side seems like a good decision, I use the Xperia Z2 and I find it convenient, however, someone using an HTC or LG may not see the same way. Although the sensor has a rather small surface Reconco Sony ensures that the tread becomes quite rapidly because the capacitive sensor has a resolution of approximately 500 dpi, which makes it very precise.

In use, the fingerprint recognition sensor of Sony is very fast and accurate, but does not work the same way in the new Nexus and Nexus 6P 5X. Instead of placing the finger on the sensor, we have to push it to unlock the screen and the Galaxy S6 + and the iPhone Edge Plus 6S.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Software

The user interface is identifiable Sony a few meters away and the Xperia Z5 Premium is no different. The device is shipped with the latest version of Android Lollipop with the Xperia user interface and preinstalled Sony exclusive services: Music, Video, What’s new, News Social Life, among others, as Facebook and 11 applications more than Google.

Like other models in the series, some of these applications can be uninstalled and other one off. As a highlight, the headphone cord works as a radio antenna and therefore offers FM radio.

The performance of the operating system is very good, most of the time is fluid and without delays. However, Xperia Z5 Premiun software has been forcibly closed during the performance of some applications, which is not expected of Xperia. As for the user interface and compared with other smartphones in the series, there is little change: support service of the company is already not an application but is now a system resource and is now on the menu configuration.

Sony is known for integrating their products well and Xperia Z5 Premium would not be different, so if you have an Android TV or Play Station 4, for example, the new smartphone screen 4K also functions as a peripheral for games PS4. You can use the device as a display and as a control. What is more surprising is the quality of images and graphics, even in games that need a lot of resources like Warframe.

In addition, Sony’s engineers have done a good job of optimizing the operating system to prevent overheating of the hardware. The Xperia Z5 Premium is equipped with 810 processor Sanpdragon already had problems with overheating in other terminals as Xperia or LG Z3 + FLEX 2. However, even watching a movie of over two hours in 4K resolution with brightness 100% screen, the device demonstrated excellent control of heating. The key to this we see below

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Performance

Z5 hardware Xperia Premium is roughly the same as the Xperia Z5 and even similar in some ways to the Xperia Z5 Compact. The device has a Snapdragon CPU 810 (MSM8994) with Qualcomm 1.5GHz and 2GHz clock speed (operating frequency), 64-bit, GPU Adreno 430. The RAM is 3 GB and comes with a variant 32GB storage and microSD support up to 200 GB.

Like the Xperia Z5, the Xperia Z5 Premium model also features a dual channel processor dissipate heat and thereby increase device performance significantly because it does not overheat. The funny thing is that in the test AnTuTu, the Xperia Z5 comes to 66,858 points while the Premium reaches 58,578.

While using the Xperia Z5 Premium had problems with delays and application falls beyond what I consider normal for a high-end smatphone. This means it is the first time I have to question the stability of the Sony software. However, an update might solve the problem (the renovation Marshmallow, perhaps).

Finally, compared to the Galaxy S6 + Edge, the smartphone serves as a reference for our benchmark tests, the Xperia Z5 Premium Xperia showed 10% lower performance, but this does not make the experience with this device is bad. As said earlier, the use of the terminal for games, multimedia consumption, access to social networking, photography, applications for content editing, etc. is really good. And the experience will improve dramatically when Sony optimize their software to prevent the forced closing of applications.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Audio

Sony’s engineers have optimized the sound quality of the line Xperia Z. Now the audio from the front speakers is more powerful, clearer and there is a higher quality MP3 files and using DSEE HX technology that offers high audio fidelity. But this resource is not as noticeable in the audio files available on streaming services like Spotify or Google Play.

Audio equalization comes with preset options but also offers the ability to customize and save. In addition, Clear Audio + function may be more appealing to users who love to listen to music at full power and without distortion. Resources DSEE and Clear Audio + HX only work when headphones are connected.

Using the sound test application “Audio Test Tone Genarator” I could do a practical demonstration of the minimum and maximum frequency of speakers Xperia Z5 Premium was possible to achieve sounds between 100 Hz and 16 KHz

As regards the audio quality on calls, even though sometimes on the other side of the line somewhat robotic voice is heard, the volume of the talks is very good, clean and microphone works very well .

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Camera

Camera Xperia Z5 Premium uses the Exmor RS sensor and boasts 23 MP, the autofocus is very fast and really recognize a new item as a foreground object, the camera focuses in milliseconds.

During the launch event Xperia Z5 Premium, it said the camera module had improved across the line and the current position does not suffer instability. Another feature that should provide a better user experience is the “hybrid image stabilizer” implies that the software also stabilizes the image. However, the use of this resource stabilization is not as good when we recorded videos, it is noted as the recording moves a lot and so I think that Sony would release a software update of the camera.

Actually Sony last week made an application upgrade your camera switching to version 2.0.0. However, it seems they have not corrected the problem of the lack of stability of the videos.

According to the website specializing in smartphone cameras, Dx Mark, Xperia Z5 camera is the very best we can locate an on the market today. According to experts of this site, “the 23 MP camera has an impressive autofocus in all conditions, details are maintained even in low light even perceived some noise.”

Something bad: in the video evidence for this analysis I made videos are very unstable. In fact, this weakness is also noted by people DxOMark “Occasionally shake is visible even using tripod” Although this should not detract from the excellent Xperia Z5 Premium camera, plus an update resolve this error.

Xperia camera line Z5 comes with excellent color rendering and high brightness images. The camera performs well in Superior Auto mode, the camera is generally very good. However, when you zoom in to the maximum, I realized the noise, but this is not an exclusive problem of Z5 Premium as it is also seen in some competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and LG Edge + G4.

After the last update, the camera software runs more cleanly and is easier to use. Now we change the function by sliding your finger from left to right or top to bottom. In the setup menu of the camera can also select Touch capture, so you can take pictures by touching anywhere on the screen.

The camera provides images at 23 MP (4: 3) resolution and the possibility of expanding five times the size of the image. However, I always recommend an image editor when approximating the photos, especially if we are talking about a resolution of 23 MP. The front camera is 5.1 MP and a representation of very good color, without having to process the image, which gives a more realistic effect selfies. The front camera is also good for video calls, the maximum resolution is FullHD.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium – Battery

The Xperia Z5 Premium comes with a battery capacity of 3,430 mAh and fast charging Qualcomm. Looking at just these two specifications and considering the optimized battery consumption line Xperia Z would have a better energy performance. But with heavy use, device performance has been lower than expected.

During the IFA 2015, Sony officially informed that new devices Xperia line Z5 would have a battery that would use the terminal a maximum of two days without charge. Specifically, referring to Xperia Z5 Premium asserted that “has a range of up to two days of battery (even with 4K screen” In practice this has not happened.

In practice, the device decreased from 100% to 15% in 5 hours and 10 minutes. At this time, I saw a movie on Netflix 170 minutes 4K, I played “Horizon Chase” (which does not require much GPU) for 30 minutes, I downloaded three applications, saw three videos on Youtube 6 minutes each, I surfed the Internet and used Hangouts to chat and send video links without.

During the test the screen brightness was at 100%, automatic brightness and turned off at the slightest energy-saving mode that lets data be run in the background.

In theory. In the battery test AnTuTu, Xperia Z5 Premium performance is weak, below the Galaxy S6 Edge + but we must not forget that the screen resolution of Xperia Z5 Premium is greater than that of Samsung.

Using battery saving modes and Ultra STAMINA STAMINA battery duration significantly prolonged, but the end result is the limitation of the system. Another option is to make a moderate use of the device, thus doubled the duration of the battery.

Verdict

Xperia Z5 Premium is smartphone with unique features but often works with limitations. The device has an outdated design and some bad decisions like using the back of a glass mirror. Although it is clear that it is the only smartphone which has a screen resolution of 4K, I think it is a feature that is very costly.

In 2015 we have witnessed many quality handsets and some of them have a higher yield than the Xperia Z5 Premium, for example: Edge Galaxy S6 + Style Moto X or Nexus 6P and even Z5 itself. By comparing the performance characteristics of software and hardware and the price of these devices with Xperia Z5 Premium check that the exclusivity of the screen does not hold.

Of course, your camera, your screen, software and audio quality are points in its favor. Now your battery does not do justice to its name, and if we add to this the lack of stability of the system and a design that does not thrill, I find no grounds for its price.