Sony Launches The Xperia Z5, Z5 Compact, and Z5 Premium With UHD Display

In April of this year Sony launched the Xperia Z4, their sequel to the 2014 Xperia Z3. Since the Z3 had only launched in September of 2014, it was a bit odd that it was being replaced after only six months as Sony’s flagship device. However, The Xperia Z4 seemed like something of a stopgap device when one considered its specs and its design, and outside of Japan Sony even marketed it as the Xperia Z3+ rather than the Z4.

Today Sony launched three new smartphones branded as Xperia Z5. The first is the standard Xperia Z5, the second is the Z5 Compact, and the most interesting of the three is the Xperia Z5 Premium. All of these devices seem more like what one would expect from successors to the Xperia Z3, and below you can find the specifications for each device.

Based on the specifications of each device, I have to hand it to Sony for offering a variety of device sizes that don’t really compromise on specs as the size gets smaller. All three phones use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 SoC, and while the Z5 Compact comes with 2GB of RAM, the normal Z5 and Z5 Premium comes with 3GB. All three phones include 32GB of NAND and have MicroSD slots.

The displays are where you do end up losing out if you don’t go for the largest device. The Z5 Compact has a 4.6″ 1280×720 display, which I do find myself wishing was a higher resolution than it is. The normal Xperia Z5 has a 5.2″ 1920×1080 display, and I’m very comfortable with this resolution as a good balance between size and sharpness. With the Xperia Z5 Premium Sony has gone all out and outfitted it with a 5.5″ 3840×2160 display. This makes the Xperia Z5 Premium the first smartphone ever to ship with a UHD display.

With a pixel density of 801 pixels per inch, there’s really no way that you would be able to see any pixels or aliasing on the Xperia Z5 Premium’s display, with the exception of edge cases like vernier acuity. I have a feeling that the Z5 Premium is going to create a lot of debate about whether or not such a high resolution even provides any visual advantage over QHD or even 1080p. It’ll also be interesting to see whether people feel it makes a difference when reading logographic languages which can have very fine details on characters.

Looking at the camera, we see that all three of the smartphones ship with the exact same camera system. The specific camera sensor used is Sony’s IMX230, which is a 23MP 1/2.3″ sensor with 1.12 micron pixels. The lens used has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 24mm, and an aperture of F/2.0. Sony’s hybrid autofocus with PDAF enables an autofocus time of just 30ms. All versions of the Xperia Z5 can record UHD video at 30fps, and the high resolution sensor can also be used to perform digital zooming or image downscaling to 8MP in order to reduce Bayer artifacts.

Naturally, the dimensions, mass, and battery capacity of each device scales with its size. All of them seem appropriate given the dimensions of the phone, but I’m very interested to see what sort of battery life the Z5 Premium gets in a display bound battery test like web browsing. All three phones support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology for fast charging speeds.

As for the design of Sony’s new phones, it doesn’t depart much from the design principles that Sony’s flagship mobile devices have always adhered to. All of them have metals frames and frosted glass backs. They do come in different colors, with all the phones coming in a silver/white and black finish, but with red and yellow being exclusive to the Z5 Compact, green being exclusive to the Z5, and gold being exclusive to the Z5 and Z5 Premium. It’s also worth noting that the fingerprint sensor on the phone is integrated into the power button, which as far as I can tell is the button in the middle of the right edge of the phone. It doesn’t look like a massive area for scanning, so I’m interested to see how well it ends up working.

Sony will be launching the Xperia Z5 Compact and Xperia Z5 globally in October, with the Xperia Z5 Premium to follow in November. The Z5 Compact will only be available with a single NanoSIM slot, while the Z5 and Z5 Premium will come in single and dual SIM versions. Pricing is yet to be announced for these three new smartphones. For more information you can check out Sony’s launch post in the source below.

Huawei Launches Mate S – Hands On

Today at Huawei’s IFA Berlin 2015 launch event the Chinese handset maker launched it’s new fall flagship device, the Mate S. 

The new 5.5″ form-factor places the Mate S along-side other similarly sized devices such as LG’s G4. This new form factor is a bit of a departure from previous designs for Huawei. The company has never offered a 5.5” phone before, their previous large format phone being the 6” Mate 7. This makes the Mate S more of a derivative of the Mate 7 than a successor, if not a new product category entirely.

Starting off, let’s start with the spec sheet of the device:

The Mate S ships with HiSilicon’s Kirin 935 SoC at the heart of the device. We have already taken a look at the Kirin in our review of the P8 a few months ago and found that the chipset exhibited some worrisome power consumption characteristics that lead to some reduced battery life. We had hoped HiSilicon would have been able to ship its next-generation SoC, the Kirin 950, in Huawei’s fall flagship but I’ve been told that the chipset isn’t ready till 2016 and likely will only find itself in Huawei’s next spring lineup.

On the network side, we see that the Mate S supports a very wide range of frequency bands which should allow the western variant of the phone to function on most carrier networks. Still connectivity related, I was disappointed to see that Huawei yet again fell back to Broadcom’s aging BCM4334 WiFi chipset. Also similar to the P8, the Mate 2 doesn’t come with support for 5GHz WiFi, a very concerning characteristic for a device of this price.

On the camera side, the Mate 2 directly adopts the camera system from the P8. This means a Sony IMX278 13MP RGBW sensor with OIS and an IMX178 8MP front-facing shooter. The camera uses a high-performing external ISP for advanced image processing. A new addition is a soft LED torch on the front of the phone specifically design for selfies.

Design-wise the back of the Mate S looks extremely similar to the Mate 7; it would be hard to distinguish them straight-on if it weren’t for their size difference. There is however one big change in the design of the phone: the back curvature. Together with the rounded bezels of the 2.5D screen, this results in the edges of the Mate S being extremely thin, far less than the 7.1mm maximum thickness at the centre of the device. Both of these design features make the Mate S one of the most comfortable devices I’ve used to date.

The Mate S also improves on previous Mate products in terms of build-quality. The aluminium of the full-metal body comes with a finer grain than what was found on the P8, yet still seems grippier than the Mate 7’s finish. The new 2.5D glass front is also surrounded by a much higher-quality material, which I’m not sure if it’s metal or a glass extension. The Mate 7 here featured a little plastic rim that could be easily chipped when dropped.

I was extremely surprised when I unpacked my unit as I came to the realization that the device comes with an AMOLED screen. This wasn’t specified in the launch presentation and something that I overlooked in the bright lights of the demo unit stands. A quick dig through the device’s drivers revealed that Huawei is using one of Samsung Display’s higher-end DDICs. The screen also managed to get extremely bright, not unlike the Galaxy S6, so we might be looking at one of SDC’s latest generation screens.

The 1080p screen is visibly using a diamond-grid pentile pixel matrix, although it’s not noticeable until you get close to the screen. The Note 3 is probably the best comparison device here when it comes to the sharpness of the screen. Huawei’s colour profile seemed a bit saturated in terms of colour calibration, but I won’t be able to tell more until I get to measure it properly for the device’s review.

A big feature that was touted during the launch was the reveal of “Force Touch” – a new input method where the screen is able to sense the amount of pressure one applies to touches. Huawei demonstrated a few features such as zooming via touch pressure or being able to use the bezels of the screen as input areas. The device even comes with a scale application that is supposed to be able to approximate an object’s weight when you place it on the screen. 

The catch however is that the Force Touch feature is limited to the 128GB model which according to Huawei won’t be available until next year, and furthermore won’t be released in all regions. It seems like the feature is not yet mass-production ready and Huawei is looking for suggestions and ideas on how the feature might could get used – meaning the software and functionality is still in the early stages.

The Mate S comes in Luxurious Gold, Titanium Grey (pictured) and Mystic Champagne colour options in 32GB and 64GB storage options for 649€ and 699€ respectively, and will be available in select markets in the coming weeks and months.

Lenovo Launches Three New VIBE Smartphones

Lenovo has been making quite a number of announcements at IFA this year. We’ve seen a unique high end Android tablet, low end Android tablets, and really big phablets. Their last announcement relating to mobile is the launch of 3 new smartphones under the Lenovo VIBE brand. You can check out the specs for Lenovo’s new smartphones in the chart below.

It’s difficult to figure out where some of these smartphones fit in the grand scheme of things. The Vibe P1 looks like Lenovo’s phone for those interested in a large but not 6.8″ PHAB large smartphone, while the VIBE S1 is a mid/high device and the P1m is the more low end device of the three. Both the P1 and P1m are characterized by very large batteries, while  the Vibe S1 has a more typical 2500mAh battery.

The internal hardware of the three VIBE smartphones varies greatly. The VIBE S1 and P1m use MediaTek SoCs, while the P1 opts for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 615. The P1 also sports 802.11ac WiFi, while the other two devices are limited to 802.11n. All of them have support for dual SIMs, which is something of a necessity for phones aimed at markets in Asia.

It’s not likely that these smartphones will make their way to North American markets, but it’s always interesting to see what kind of devices get sold in different markets. Like all of Lenovo’s launches today, the VIBE S1, P1, and P1m will be going on sale this holiday season.