The Sony Xperia 5 V is official with a brand new digicam arrange, but it surely shares many specs and options with the bigger Xperia 1 V.
Sony says the brand new cellphone is concentrating on “visible communicators and content material lovers”, which I suppose means individuals who use their telephones to take images and watch movies, which is everybody.
Extra particularly, the Xperia 5 V (that’s ‘5 mark 5’) has cameras with three focal lengths, an additional mic that prioritises voice seize, a video creator app for stitching collectively clips, and modes to offer video a extra cinematic really feel.
Right here’s the whole lot you might want to know concerning the Sony Xperia 5 V.
When will the Sony Xperia 5 V be launched?
Sony introduced the Xperia 5 V on 1 September, and says the cellphone will likely be available for purchase “from late September”, with out truly confirming a date. That is traditional Sony behaviour.
How a lot will the Sony Xperia 5 V value?
The Sony Xperia 5 V will value €999 in Europe and £849 within the UK.
That is cheaper than the Xperia 5 IV, which value €1,049/£949 and places the cellphone in direct value competitors with the £849 iPhone 14.
Sony
What specs and options does the Sony Xperia 5 V have?
Listed here are the headline specs of the Xperia 5 V:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- Android 13
- 2 years of Android updates
- 3 years of safety patches
- 6.1in 21:9 FHD+ 120Hz OLED show
- 128GB storage
- 8GB RAM
- Cameras:
- 52Mp (48Mp efficient) f/1.35 primary sensor
- 12Mp f/2.5 ultrawide sensor
- 12Mp f/1.29 entrance dealing with sensor
- IP65/68 water and mud resistant
- 5,000mAh battery
- 30W wired charging
- Wi-fi charging
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Twin stereo audio system
- Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on back and front
- 154 x 68 x 8.6mm
- 183g
Identical to the Xperia 1 V, you get Qualcomm’s present excessive finish Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, alongside 8GB RAM and 128GB expandable storage.
The 6.1in OLED refreshes at 120Hz and is Sony’s favoured 21:9 facet ratio, designed so cinematic video can render in full display screen panorama with no black bars. Though that is the smaller cellphone in comparison with the Xperia 1 V, the display screen continues to be a good dimension – this isn’t the Sony Compact telephones of previous.
A giant year-on-year change for the Xperia 5 V is it now solely has two rear digicam sensors relatively than three. It has misplaced the variable optical zoom lens from the 5 IV and actually has no telephoto lens in any respect.
As an alternative, it makes use of a primary 52Mp primary lens that crops a 48Mp efficient space to create zoom pictures Sony hopes will likely be of fine sufficient high quality. The cellphone continues to be marketed at digicam fans, so describes zoom in focal lengths; the primary digicam can shoot in 24mm and 48mm (the latter the identical as 2x optical zoom), whereas the separate ultra-wide lens can shoot in 16mm.
Sony
There’s additionally a 12Mp selfie digicam nestled within the high bezel. I like that Sony is among the few cellphone makers left to not use a notch or reduce out, holding the display screen uninterrupted.
Sony piles on the digicam options right here too. It has an S-Cinetone mode to offer movies a cinematic really feel akin to what will be captured on Sony’s Alpha cameras. In actual fact, different cool issues reminiscent of actual time eye auto-focus and monitoring comes straight from these cameras too.
Like different current Xperia telephones, Sony will ship the Xperia 5 V with a number of totally different content material seize apps together with Video Professional, Cinema Professional, and Pictures Professional. New is a Video Creator app that may sew collectively video clips right into a shareable montage, full with music.
If music is your factor, there’s additionally the Music Professional app for recording audio to near-studio high quality, Sony claims. The cellphone additionally helps wired and wi-fi Hello-Res audio by way of the three.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth 5.3 respectively.
Sony
The Xperia 5 V will likely be accessible in gray, black, and blue, although sadly none have the superb tactile etched glass again of the Xperia 1 V, which stored that cellphone premium feeling however freed from fingerprints.
Sony doesn’t promote too many telephones, and I’m unsure taking away a digicam lens and churning out a near-identical mannequin 12 months after 12 months goes to resolve that. The corporate might be pissed off that this tactic works for Apple and Samsung, although.
What Sony lacks in comparison with these rivals is software program help. For a cellphone pushing £900, the Xperia 5 V will solely get two years of Android updates and three of safety patches. That’s two years behind Samsung on each fronts – it’s merely not ok, and Sony has no excuses, significantly when it’s pushing an eco-agenda with the telephones recyclable packaging and lack of charger or cable within the field. It’s a contradiction when the cellphone will solely be up to date until 2026.
I actually appreciated the Xperia 5 IV once I reviewed it, however I can’t assist however really feel these 5-series telephones can be extra interesting to the discerning smartphone public in the event that they have been at the very least €200/£200 cheaper.