[Sony Xperia 5 Real Life Review] djfuego:
Very Nice

It's a very nice handset. The only things I have against this phone is the stupid power and fingerprint separate buttons.

I know why this has been done but it still sucks.

I've upgraded from a Z5 Compact so i was surprised that it felt about the same weight in your hand. The width is about the same too so holding in your hend is comfortable.

It's going to stick out of the pocket though and I can't get the 'free' headphones until the promotion week.

The only thing I need to work out is the side sense thing as I haven't had a replacement handset for almost 5 years.. Migrating my setup from one handset to the other was ok but as a different android version the links where there but no apps.

Oh and the cameras are pretty cool. The whole 3d scanning thing is great as per previous handsets with this feature which I wasn't expecting on this handset and the Dolby atmos I've been using on my PC which does improve the listening experience when wearing headphones. The vibrating sound thing to me sounds like a battery waster. It's only day one for me but I'll keep this post updated as I go.

Day three and the battery life thing has been an issue. Just be sure you don't mind only getting a day (Litterelly 24 hours with a full charge) as with standard use and I haven't been playing games only using the camera so be prepared. You have to remember to kill off all apps before bed time as I discovered the battery went from %50 to ~%20 over night when I didn't do this. There are definetly some battery tweaks that need to be done here to extend the life. The smart charge thing is an assumption that you'll always be able to charge the phone.

That is a big screen and is using most of the battery. You're only option here is to reduce the brightness. The adaptive brightness seems to always return to 50% even though I've set it lower in the evening. If you could calibrate this to not go above a brightness during times then this would save some battery.

The screen is the best feature of viwing media on the phone IMO. You can finally see the whole picture and not waste screen space. The three cameras are awesome and the Pro video app is a great touch to these.

Oh one last thing.. There is no USB to USBc connector (PC to phone) You get a Female to Female USB Charging cable. If you're coming from Micro usb then this is unexpected.

Ok So It's the new year Jan (Half way through) and I have only just nudged over half my phones storage and that includes my family christmas vids which I haven't yet parked off onto the NAS. I really don't feel the need for expanding the storage of this phone and probably won't unless I start recording in 4K all the time. The pro video recorder doesn't get used as often as I'd like as you have to calibrate it before use for the lighting conditions so for quick vids the camera button is linked to the main camera app still. I got a usbc to hdmi box (ZasLuke) so I can plug this into the TV directly as the video quality is great. The problem (at the moment) is that you have the aspect ratio issue which you can use zoom for but until this new aspect ratio is used for TVs it seems a little weird.

I got the Android 10 update and as I'm no longer in the ROM dev game I don't have much interest in updates unless they can make my battery last longer. The battery will last over a day or two at a push but I rarly let the charge go below 15% I only reboot the phone when I'm trying to stream and I get really bad buffering issues on Amazon.

The "free" headphones get used every day for about an hour to an hour and a half and go back in their charging pod when not in use which has also had a couple of firmware updates to provide Alexa support now the range is surprisingly good too. When I come to use them again they are fully charged again. I don't charge the headphones for about a week which is great.

Oh and it has officially been dropped by accident on the corner but the protective case did exactly what I wanted it to and saved me from a fate worse than calling the insurance. Still shiny and unblemished.