Sony took the stage at IFA 2019 and introduced its
latest smartphone called Xperia 5 - yes, five. It comes with a 6.1” OLED panel
with a tall CinemaWide screen, effectively arriving as the compact sibling of
the Xperia 1 flagship. The Xperia 5 comes with Snapdragon 855, but sadly, the Five in the
name has nothing to do with 5G - Sony coupled the chipset with the regular X24
LTE modem.
The new phone borrowed the trio of cameras from the
Xperia 1 (12 MP regular + 12 MP ultra-wide-angle + 12 MP telephoto), but now
the setup is placed in the upper left corner. With the screen becoming smaller,
Sony decided to cut down the resolution as well. This phone has Full HD+
resolution, which translates into 2520 x 1080 pixels. Sony says the screen has
been tuned “for a viewing experience true to creators’ intent.”
There is also Dolby Atmos-enhanced stereo sound with
one speaker on the bottom and the earpiece acting as a second one for the
stereo experience. Just like the Xperia 1, the new phone also brings Creator Mode.
However, the Xperia 5 is one step ahead of its bigger brother with a new
feature called “Smart connectivity”. It learns the phone’s behavior with LTE
and Wi-Fi signal and automatically switches to LTE when it predicts any
compromise in the wireless connectivity.
When a phone gets smaller, its battery cell
imminently loses capacity - the Xperia 5 has only 3,140 mAh, but still supports
Power Delivery charging, so there’s no issue in topping it with 18W rates. Initially, the smartphone will be
bundled with the Sony WF-1000XM3 noise-cancelling headphones, with pre-orders
starting next week, while actual shipping is scheduled for October.
