*** Sony Xperia Z5 ***

Iout?

I'm the same kitch. Can't wait to get rid of this iPhone 6. Very little use this morning and it's already at 80%. Big battery and an sd card slot. So excited!
 
Anybody knows if the z5 comes with the digital noise cancellation headset? Read about only some countries got them with the z3 so don't want to preorder and not have them as well.
 
I'm on Vodafone, £54 with 8GB data. but i also get spotify too, which i would buy anyway. so that saves me around £10 a month. so its really like £44 a month for the contract.
 
Whoah that uswitch deal works out at £460 total for the £17.50 package. I could then use the sim in the car as a backup data sim for sat nav or something.

Question is, are uswitch handsets branded o2 or are they like cpw and simply retail aim free handsets? If the latter then I'll be jumping onboard I reckon at that price.
 
Uswitch are just a comparison site, those o2 deals are direct with O2 if you click through to 'see deal" so I'd imagine it'll be a branded handset.

Also, looking at it I imagine that there probably could be a pricing error. Looking at it on the o2 site when you follow the links through from Uswitch on the £29.99 upfront, £28pm the handset cost works out at only £197.99. Surely that cant be correct?.........
 
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First Guardian review
:http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...eria-z5-review-waterproof-fingerprint-scanner

To say Sony is iterative on design would be an understatement. The Z5 looks just like the various Sony flagships from the last two or three years.

All glass, back and front, held together by a band of metal with plastic corners that are meant to absorb the energy of a drop to the floor and help the screen not shatter.

The frosted glass back both looks and feels nice, while the phone is reassuringly solid in the hand. The device is waterproof, so trips into the pond won’t matter too much, but the USB port and headphones port are both exposed so there’s no need to mess with fiddly doors. Wireless charging, which you would think would be perfect for something like this, is disappointedly absent.

The 5.2in LCD display is great. Vibrant, colourful, bright and with good viewing angles. It isn’t quite as eye-popping as some rival OLED screens from Samsung or as pixel perfect as higher resolution LG’s 2K LCD, but most will be more than satisfied with the screen.

The phone is slightly thicker than high-end rivals from Apple and Samsung at 7.3mm thick, but is easy to slip into a pocket or to hold, particularly compared to larger phablets with screens over 5.5in.

The front-facing speakers are decent, for small phone speakers, and make it easier to watch videos in stereo without blocking the speaker with your hands.


Screen: 5.2in 1080p LCD (424ppi)
Processor: octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810
RAM: 3GB of RAM
Storage: 32GB; microSD card slot
Operating system: Android 5.1.1 “Lollipop”
Camera: 23MP rear camera, 5MP front-facing camera
Connectivity: LTE, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth 4 and GPS
Dimensions: 146 x 72 x 7.3 mm
Weight: 154g

Not quite as hot

The Xperia logo is etched into the metal sides. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

The Xperia Z5 contains Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810, which has been responsible for causing overheating issues in not only Sony’s previous Z3+ but in other Android flagship devices.

The Z5 does get warm, but not enough to cause issues in my testing. It was warmest when downloading music for offline playback, not when playing a graphically intensive game.

The phone doesn’t seem to suffer from slow down when it gets hot and while it isn’t the fastest smartphone available – that would be the Samsung Galaxy S6 – the Xperia Z5 performs well. It doesn’t quite have the same zip as some other top-end Android smartphones.

I found battery life a little disappointing. Without using any of Sony’s battery saving modes the Xperia Z5 only lasted an average of 34 hours 30 minutes between charges, using it as a primary device with hundreds of push emails, notifications three hours of browsing and two hours of listening to music via Bluetooth headphones per day.

Compared to the day’s battery most smartphones provide, over 34 hours is good, but it’s a far cry from the up to two-days battery Sony is claiming. It’s possible battery life may get better in production models.

Sony’s Stamina mode, which provides a whitelist of apps while disabling others when the screen is off, works well and brings the battery life closer to 48 hours in my testing.

I noticed that the camera impacted the battery life considerably, running the battery almost flat in under 18 hours shooting around 40 photos at a wedding.

Small, useful changes

The additional quick settings and control over what appears in the status bar are just some of the useful additions to the standard Android experience that Sony makes. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Sony customises the standard Android 5.1 Lollipop experience with small modifications. The version installed on the Xperia Z5 is Sony’s lightest touch yet, and while it looks a little aesthetically different it will be familiar to anyone who has used Android in the past.

Sony makes some useful additions, including more customisable quick settings toggles in the notifications shade, some task automation, such as turning on the Wi-Fi when you get home, and theme support to change the look of the software.

Most of Sony’s apps, including the Walkman app work well enough, but can be ignored if you already use alternatives including Google’s or something like Spotify.

Camera

The camera app is one of the best on the market with plenty of features. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

The Z5 has Sony’s first new camera sensor in two years and increases the resolution to 23-megapixels from the 21 available on previous smartphones.

The megapixel count allows the phone to produce 8-megapixel images with a 5-times digital zoom without losing detail, or oversample without zooming, which helps to remove noise and artefacts.

Sony’s camera app is excellent with great automatic modes and enough manual settings to keep most happy. Photos look great, with good detail and colour accuracy in middling and good light. Low light performance is OK, but not best in class. Focusing was very fast, but sometimes struggled in lowlight situations. I found the flash was particularly ineffective.

The front-facing camera produces acceptable, if not spectacular, selfies – often looking a bit soft. This is flattering for most people, but diminishes detail in the photo.

Video recorded using Sony’s Steadyshot is smooth, removing camera shake and the jarring motion of bad dancing. The camera can record 4K video and doesn’t overheat, but at 300MB per minute you will need a large SD card for capturing anything in length.

Fingerprint scanner

The fingerprint sensor under the power button is excellent. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Sony has fitted a fingerprint scanner under the power button on the side of the device, which is excellent. It isn’t as fast as Huawei’s sensor, but it recognised my thumb 99% of the time without issue, and has yet to fail to recognise my left index finger.

Having it under the power button on the side is the most convenient place I have come across for fingerprint sensor placement, and means there’s no risk of dropping the device.
Price

The Sony Xperia Z5 is available for pre-order in black, white, gold and green, costing £550, which makes it similarly priced to Samsung Galaxy S6 and slightly cheaper than Apple’s iPhone 6S.

Verdict

The Xperia Z5 is a great flagship smartphone, and arguably the best Sony smartphone yet. The slightly more squared-off design compared to the Z3 makes it look a little more generic, but the frosted glass on the back is considerably more attractive.

The best parts about the Z5 are the fingerprint sensor and the camera, but competitors including Apple and Samsung have equally good systems.

It’s difficult to stand out in the crowded high-end smartphone market, and not quite making two-days of battery is disappointing. The Z5 is good, it’s just not quite the best.

Pros: waterproof, good camera, microSD card slot, great fingerprint scanner

Cons: doesn’t live up to battery expectations, no wireless charging, not the snappiest, weak camera flash, can get quite warm
Click to expand...


48 hours battery life is based on using stamina mode.
 
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