Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions: Bigger, Better and Beautiful

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Sony has been milking the premium smartphone market with the Xperia Z series for a long time. However, the company has been making this premium series of smartphone a bit monotonous in terms of design. Even the latest flagship device - the Xperia Z5 Premium hasn't escaped the legacy design of the Xperia Z series.

 

The same old rectangular build has somewhat turned out to be a gone-old-days style just being followed by the Microsoft (Nokia Lumia) and Sony now. Perhaps, you would like it better (if you are a Sony fan) if I say that there is much more than a design language in the new Sony Xperia Series launched today including the Z5 Premium model.

 

Rating:
4.5/5

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

There are several things that one can tell about Sony Xperia smartphones without even looking at it (at least about the Z series). These aspects would be a competitive camera and obviously a waterproof build. Apart from that you can also assume the device to have a metallic frame and a highly smoothened back-panel with a glass finish that makes it literally a "wanna have" smartphones.

If you can visualize the aforementioned description, the highly leaked Xperia Z5 Premium would exactly look like that. GizBot got an early chance to take a look at the device closely. We are completely impressed with the device and before exploding with excitement, here is the first and quick impression that the device left with us.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Design

As said earlier, the design language of the Xperia Z5 Premium is pretty much similar to its predecessor. However, there minute changes that have come to the design and placement of the buttons. The redesigned power button which was previously circular and bit standing out of the levelled side edges now has found a better looks. The flat and bit elongated power button seats at the close-to-center of the right edge. Ove a bit down and you will find a thin, yet sneaking out volume rocker which looks like it is more protruding from the level compared to the power button's elevation. Slip further to the south and you will feel the camera button which is half the length of the volume rocker. On the other side, on one end you will see a deeply engrained "XPERIA" branding and on the other there is a latch that opens up for SIM and MicroSD card.

The company has tweaked the button and port placements comfortably this time and if you compare it with the previous Z3 or earlier model, the side edges will look quite different due to the re-arrangement and re-designed looks of the buttons and ports.

The bottom of the phone houses a sort of lanyard and just beside it lies the microUSB port. The top edge towards the left-hand side, you will see a 3.5mm headphone port and beside it is a microphone as well.

The back side of the phone is what makes it look elegant. The 23MP camera with a LED flash is fitted on the top-left part of the rear panel while the NFC logo is just an inch or two away towards the center.

We have seen a bigger build factor before used by different smartphone manufacturers in the recent past and they are quit un-pocketable and not comfortable to use as well. Thankfully, the new Xperia Z5 Premium's 5.5-inch display was better in a lot of ways. The metal frames do offer enough grip to the hands and along comes the sturdy form factor.

The device has a phenomenal appearance overall and sure, it literally looks as classy as it can be. Let's bring in the words from Sony as well here - they define the design of the phone as "elegant high-gloss waterproof plate form with etched mirror effect Chrome, Black and Gold, with integrated power-button finger print sensor." That's a literal translation of the elegant design of the new Xperia Z5 premium.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Display

It's sure that Sony will lelave most of the smartphones in the display resolution and quality here-on. The Japanese premium smartphone manufacturer has bestowed upon its flagship device the incredible 5.5-inch 4K Triluminos display for mobile built with Sony's BRAVIA TV expertise.

The pixel density reaches as much as 806ppi offering the sharpest viewing experience and as we played with it the device also seemed to have a commendable contrast and a wider viewing angles owing to the usage of the IPS technology. According to the company the new Z series is also blessed with X-Reality evolution, with Live Colour Creation technology that makes images more lifelike.

With the revolutionary 4K UHD display only seen on smart TVs these days, the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium receives the facility to upscale content to 4K - enhance any native or third party videos or photos and view Netflix, YouTube or holiday photos in richer detail.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Power and Processor and OS

The new Xperia Z5 Premium is not going to be the odd one out in the contemporary generation of the premium smartphones, where almost all use the Snapdragon chipsets. One of the latest ones - Snapdragon 810 is what the newly announced Xperia Z5 Premium user to power up its system.

If you are not informed, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor is a 64-bit chipset with 8 CPU cores that complements the leading modem capabilities, streaming 4K Ultra HD video, and gaming strength in the phone.

Talking about the games, the device can perhaps handle graphic centric games as it the Snapdragon 810 CPU is coupled with Adreno 430 GPU that enables the device to run 3D games on 4K displays easily. Add to that a 3GB of massive RAM. Hence, the new Xperia Z5 Premium is a monster device in terms of power and processor.

As far as the Operating system is concerned, you are looking at the Android Lollipop device. You will basically get to see all the goodness of Android 5.1. The UI has been upgraded a bit and seems heavier as well.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Storage and Connectivity

As far as the native storage capacity is concerned, the new Xperia Z5 Premium comes with a 32GB built in memory which can be further enhanced with a microSD card up to 200GB more.

The company has thoughtfully offered 200 GB of external memory support to the phone because most of the 4K videos are quite large in size and can eat up as much space from your drive.

With the use of the Snapdragon 810 processor, you can automatically say that the Xperia Z5 Premium will feature a 4G LTE support. Apart from that Bluetooth, USB and NFC along with DLNA and MHL 3.0 can also be found. Another thing in the phone that Asian market will be excited about is the Dual SIM support.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Camera

The Xperia Z5 Premium features Sony's brand new large 1/2.3 Exmor RS for mobile 23MP sensor and F2.0 G Lens. This might make the device one of the best in the market if imaging hardware configuration is considered.

We took couple of shots out door, with the device and it has actually improved a lot in the camera segment from Xperia Z3. The image stabilizer works pretty well. The image that we shot in a shaky situation didn't get ruined in anyway. (Sample image)

The auto-focus is fast but not the fastest. According to the company, it delivers a ground-breaking speed of just 0.037 seconds - faster than the blink of a human eye (average 0.1 - 0.4 s), but when we used it, it didn't hit the claimed speed.

Moreover, you will also see the addition of the new modes in the camera UI. The camera standard of the Xperia Z5 Premium is pretty much top notch but still we can tell you more about it in our review, so let's reserve the judgement for the review. If in case you are wondering if it can shot videos in 4K resolution, it does.

Obviously, you will find a 5MP frontal camera on the device, which will easily make the device capable of shooting selfies.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Battery

The massive smartphone with the 4K display is solely powered by 3430 mAh battery, which according to the company lasts for up to two days. However, the company has not specified clearly under what kind of usability, is the battery standard claimed. Anyway, we will have to wait for the confirmation on the battery part until we review the device. Perhaps, a better part would be a quick charging capability that has been added to the phone, this time around.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium First Impressions

Conclusion

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is for sure the most premium looking smartphones so far. The company has been making the design language a kind of branding in itself and sure it is a pretty good looking device. Sony has also successfully maintained its standards with this device, giving it the best of all the Sony's legacy features.

Moreover, the highly expected camera functions and quality didn't fail to impress GizBot. Surely, that was a quick look at the device and we will surely give our full review on the phone soon. Stay tuned for now.

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