[Sony Xperia C5 Ultra] gocchin:
Please note this is my opinion and experience with the phone. I love trying all kinds of smart phones.

I wanted to love this phone...

Being a heavy google apps user and a lover of customization and android, I recently switched back to android from the iPhone 6 Plus (previous phones as well include Blackberry Passport, Note Edge, Note 3, LG G3, Oneplus One, Xperia Z1, Sharp SH-03G (Docomo), Ascend Mate 7 to name a few). The C5 Ultra caught my attention with it's good looks, 6" screen and Sony's boasting of it's great front and rear facing 13mp cameras. Both cameras sounded perfect for me to take photos of my 2 year old and family selfies with the front camera. After a week of use here are my thoughts:

Pros:

- Beautiful design - very sleek with edge to edge (sides have little to no bezel) glass on the front making this a tall looking phone

- Dual Sim - great when I travel overseas

- Separate MicroSD card slot - some manufacturers force you to use the second sim slot but not Sony

- Unlocked

- GPS accurate

- Wifi reasonably strong

- Call quality good

Cons

- Screen (Innolux) lacks contrast and does poorly with blacks, colours are dull and washed out. There is screen backlight bleeding especially around the bottom edges.

- Camera Images - What a disappointment. Perhaps mine is a dud but colors are dull, photos over exposed, highlights blown out, photos are not sharp, even taken in daylight.

- Camera Performance - It doesn't matter how beautiful photos are a camera CAN take if it CANNOT catch the moment. The lag on the phone is terrible. Camera app slow to open. Focus slow to acquire. Shutter terribly slow. After focusing on an object which is slow to do, I press the shutter and the camera tries to focus again then shoot taking more than a second to do so. Because of this I keep missing the moment even outside in broad daylight.

- Camera Software - Slow, occasionally crashes. Doesn't stay on the last setting you used if you reopen the app.

- Battery life - very disappointing. I am not a heavy user. I take maybe 10-15 photos, read some email, browse the web. Rarely watch videos or listen to music and the phone struggles to make it 12-13 hours. Charges very slowly whether plugged in via usb or directly into a wall.

- The iPhone 6 Plus battery and Blackberry Passport I previously had blow this away when it comes to battery.

- Phone performance - Occasional lag or stutter opening apps, swiping between home screens

- Auto brightness is very inconsistent, in an evenly lit room, it is constantly adjusting up and down brightness.

In case anyone is interested benchmark numbers here (It's the Non-verified score)

View attachment 3457493

Bottom line:

Visually a beautiful phone. Functionally a huge disappointment. The hype of a higher end or top mid range phone but not the same performance to back up the hype. Perhaps a lot of this, like the camera performance and the battery life and some OS performance can be tweaked and fixed with software updates. I love Sony products, and my house is full of Sony goods. Sony has a great name and reputation here in Japan but at the end of the day, Xperia phones still let me down and I end up going to solid phones from Samsung and LG. LG G4 on the way...