[Xperia Z5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] neonixxx:
+1 on this.

I just switched to a Z5 from a Z2 a little over a week ago and I have mixed feelings, though mostly good. Some background: I only switched because my Z2 has been crapping out lately with a seemingly corrupt data partition and reboot issues. I had a Z5 on hand which I had bought on eBay because the seller had it up for a really great deal plus a bunch of brand new unused accessories (originally just bought it to try it out and resell if I didn't want to upgrade), so I switched to it as a backup when my Z2 got totally borked just hours before I was leaving for vacation.

The Z5 is nice overall. The hardware is beautiful. It feels considerably lighter than the Z2, which is really great (but probably mostly thanks to the 300mAh less of battery juice :rolleyes:). It is a tad thinner and a little less wide, too, so it does have a better feel in my hand. I miss some specific custom rom features I have become used to, but not as many/much as I would have expected. Mostly I've found myself missing control over LED notification colors for every app, control over heads up notifications per-app, and the handy delete button on the notification when you take a screenshot (seriously didn't even realize that wasn't an AOSP feature). I know there are apps and Xposed modules for the first two things, but I've yet to successfully install Xposed on the phone without perpetual bootloops. Speaking of the notification LED, I do miss the more attractive in-speaker placement of the LED on the Z2 (Z5 just has a dot on the top-left corner of the glass), however, it is much easier to see it on the Z5 when laying flat on a table/desk since it's no longer dipped down in a cavity (which caused it to be blocked by the edge of the top glass panel on the Z2).

As far as the SD810 inside, I don't notice a big difference in the performance compared to the SD801 in the Z2, for my usage. The UI does run a bit more fluidly, but that may be because of the custom rom and/or other mods I had on my Z2 that I don't have on the Z5. I would say I'm a moderately heavy user, but mostly of less intense apps. I rarely play games on my phone and the only one I've played so far on the Z5 is Pocket Mortys, which has no 3D rendering. That said, it runs perfectly fine without lag, though I haven't played it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. The phone does heat up a bit, but not noticeably more than my Z2 or any other phone I've used. It doesn't ever feel hot during my regular usage.

The volume rocker position is weird, but not as inconvenient as you might expect. I actually don't mind it at all.

I very much like not having to open an annoying flap to plug in a USB cable.

The microSD slot is built into the SIM card tray, so you cannot remove the microSD without the phone rebooting itself because the SIM card was removed. You probably rarely have to do this, but it's something to note.

Not sure if it's just my unit, but the screen has a noticeable backlight bleed at the top. It's not a huge deal, but it can be bothersome if you're OCD like me. I usually stop noticing it, though. Also, the screen has this weird software quirk where it'll have REALLY high contrast for several seconds after turning the screen on. My guess is it's incorrectly reading ambient light and thinks it's really bright out. I think it should be fixable with a software update, but who knows if Sony will indeed fix it. This issue isn't a big deal either, but it's kind of annoying.

The camera quality is still crappy compared to every other flagship phone available. The post-processing seems to just soften everything and you get absolutely no micro detail in any textures or anything. The edges of objects blend into their backgrounds and there's no sharpness. It really sucks. Worse than my Z2. It's the software post-processing for sure, as Google Camera takes better photos across the board from what I've tested (I'm far from any kind of pro photog, though), but unfortunately it and every other camera app I've tried to use can't seem to read the camera lenses properly (it only has resolution options up to 8.1MP and the Google Camera viewfinder shows everything squeezed in disproportionately) and have a LONG shutter delay. It's honestly unacceptable IMO. I'm still searching for a camera app that doesn't suck on this phone... Fortunately, I don't take a lot of serious photos (I mostly just Snapchat stupid or funny things I see), but I was trying to do so more before my Z2 crapped out. This phone is making that difficult.

Another problem I as well as others on this forum have is bluetooth. My Z2 had no problems, but with the Z5, my Pebble will at some point start to lose connection constantly, which sometimes resolves on its own after a while or force me to reboot the phone to resolve it. It also sometimes doesn't connect automatically to my car's bluetooth, which is a huge pain while driving.

Apparently Xposed works on the phone, but I have yet to get it to install and boot properly. The guides on XDA say it need to bootloop "a few"/"2-3" times, but I have not had any luck waiting for several reboots. So that's something to consider if you like Xposed.

So as you can tell, in my experience, the worst things about the Xperia Z5 are software-related and hopefully might be fixed in the next update from Sony or in a custom ROM if someone releases one. There are some nice hardware improvements, but nothing worth using an upgrade or spending money on IMO (unless you reallly want a fingerprint sensor). I think it's worth waiting it out as long as your upgrade window doesn't expire. And if the Z5 doesn't get improved, at least it'll only be a couple more months until the Z6 is announced... :silly: And this is a point in the year where a bunch of exciting new devices are about to be announced, so I think it'd be worth your wait if you aren't completely committed to Sony phones.