phone 22 – sony xperia z5 premium dual

as if having bought 6 phones, including my first ever work phone, sony xperia z3 dual, is not enough, i continued expanding my collection. but this actually happened on the last quarter of 2017. i also thought of demoting xperia z3 as a multimedia device, which is intended for watching movies and eventually upgrade my work phone. being a producer of dependable handsets, i chose another xperia phone which was released in 2015. in 2017, being already reviewed by many people and being impressed as well, i chose the z5 premium dual.

i wont deny that one of the reasons of selecting the premium variant over the regular variant is its headlining feature – the first 4k display on a smartphone. that is aside from great audio experience and of course the design. remember that when i bought the firefy mobile aurii secret 4g which is supposed to be an aurii envy, i already set an eye on z5 premium for its design.

for the battery testing, it still managed to be one of the good phones in my collection. last year, 2020, it charges for 2 hours and 22 minutes. this year, 2021, it charges quite longer, not really significant. it lasted for a day and an hour which is also good in comparison to other phones i have. anything for more or less than a day is good for me.

battery score card

music play is similar to that of sony xperia z3 dual. the pair of front loudspeakers provides immersive experience. for a small room, they can fill it well. a surround sound option for headphones also work on the loudspeakers. but for bigger room, like the living room, there is a need for external loudspeaker. that is not a problem since there is a 3.5mm port for the existing speakers at home. bluetooth speaker? no problem as well.

it also excels on web browsing. the texts and images are sharp. despite running on 1080p instead of 2160p most of the time, the sharpness is still noticeable. with screen captures, web pages can be zoomed significantly and is still sharp. i never seen such on my sony xperia z3 dual. viewing the same screen captures on my laptop also look better than those coming from my sony xperia z3 dual, since the screenshots maintain the 2160p resolution. surely, it is one of the advantages for my work related tasks as it is really intended for that purpose – work. that is why i always disagree to those naysayers saying that a 2160p or 4k display is useless on a phone. well, if you only use a phone for text messaging and calls, then even a 720p display is useless.

for gaming, casual gaming is seamless. for heavy games, especially for newer ones, it might not run seamlessly. if it does, the phone will get significantly warm. based on comments i have been reading on the internet, the most complaints is too much heat. i experienced worse on some of my phones. worst on firefly mobile aurii secret 4g. not to discredit their experience, but at my end, ye, the temperature gets really high but i do not see it as something to complain about. perhaps, my usage is incomparable to theirs.

for photo shoots, there are a lot of improvements on the quality, but the camera modes on sony xperia z3 dual, sony xperia z1 compact(a) and [sony xperia z1 compact (b)] were similar. same story for video recording. and i already mentioned things i love about the camera on those previous posts.

video play is where z5 premium is significantly better than all my previous xperias. while z3 dual can record 4k videos, z5 premium can also play it natively. it is one of the use cases, where the 2160p or 4k display kicks in. well, all pixels work all the time, but playing a 4k video means the gpu treats each pixel separately. for video streaming apps, like youtube, you also get higher bit rate, which means better viewing. however, being the first generation 4k display, z5 premium still has no hdr display. so, you cannot enjoy hdr playback even with the videos you recorded.

in 2020, i demoted it as a multimedia phone since i upgraded my work phone last year. though, from time to time i still use it for work related stuff. so, it helped me for over 3 years as a work phone. i was really satisfied with both z1 compact (a) and z5 premium dual that i did not plan for an upgrade unless both deteriorates. does it mean i will not buy any phone in 2017? for personal phone and work phone, of course i wont. buying for collection is another story.