Sony has reimagined the Xperia 5 series: it’s no longer a smaller Xperia 1, but the Sony Xperia 5 V is looking to carve out a category of its own and bring in a next generation of Sony users. The 5V is less “pro-sumer” and more “point and shoot”.
The Mark 5 will be available later this month starting from €1,000/£850. For more details, you can check out our review, we also have a video review.
As expected, Sony has eliminated the dedicated zoom camera from the phone. Instead, the 48MP main camera, which uses the same stacked 1/1.35” ExmorT sensor as the Xperia 1 V, relies on the sensor’s native 2x crop function to handle zoom.
Recall that the Mark 4 had a 12MP 60mm lens, which wasn’t as impressive as the Mark 3’s 12MP 70/105mm. So, Sony has been reducing the zoom capabilities of the Xperia 5 for a couple of generations now and it’s become all digital this year. Why? The Xperia 10 V also has a dedicated lens – the 8MP 2x module is absolutely nothing special, but the 5 series is meant to be a flagship. It definitely has the price of one.
This isn’t to demean the main camera, it offers amazing photo quality and the videos were up to par too. The other two modules, the 12MP 16mm ultra-wide-angle camera (1/2.5″ sensor) and the 12MP selfie camera (1/2.9″), also did an admirable job, even if the lack of a real zoom and a macro mode is felt.
The rest of the phone has missed out on some much-needed updates. The 6.1” 21:9 OLED display with FHD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate still has very limited modes (you can choose 60Hz or 120Hz and that’s it). The 5,000mAh battery with 30W charging (0-50% in 30 minutes) plus wireless charging could have been a little quicker to charge.
Some things are the same in a good way: you still get the microSD slot for storage expansion (and you’ll probably need it, 128GB isn’t much), a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an IP68 rating. There are stereo speakers on board and they are superb.
Of course, the new model is powered by this year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is more efficient than its predecessor that was inside the Mark 4. The new model achieved a battery life of 130 hours (up from 116 hours) . However, the enthusiasm for the new chip dies down a bit when you see that the base configuration remains with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. And thermal management was poor, leading to throttling.
What has Sony been doing all year? Well, it turns out the Video Creator app can automatically edit several videos into one ready to post to social media. And there’s an improved Bokeh mode (especially in low light), plus a Bokeh mode for the selfie camera too. Snark aside, the Mark 5 is a solid high-end phone, but so was the Mark 4 last year—the 2022 models had its flaws, and only some of them were fixed this year.
The Sony Xperia 5 V measures 154 x 68 x 8.6 mm and weighs 183 g. For reference, a Galaxy S23 measures 146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6 mm and 168 g, a Zenfone 10 is 146.5 x 68.1 x 9.4 mm and 172 g and iPhone 14 Pro is 147.5 x 71.5 x 7.9 mm and 206 g.
Samsung Galaxy S23 • Asus Zenfone 10 • Apple iPhone 14 Pro
The Xperia 5 was never a Compact, but it stood out with its tall screen and great camera, plus goodies like a 3.5mm jack and a microSD slot. But now that the screen hasn’t seen much change in a couple of years, one of the best parts of the camera setup is gone, does the 5 series still have a place on the market?
Even foldable flips these days have impressive zoom capabilities, for example the Oppo Find N3 Flip has a 32MP 2x camera. Other foldables like the Galaxy Z Flip5 and Razr 40 Ultra also offer compact designs and powerful chipsets, combined with the exciting new form factor.
Oppo Find N3 Flip • Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 • Motorola Razr 40 Ultra
What do you think? Has Sony found an untapped market with the new Xperia 5 V or has it completely lost ground?
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