Sony Xperia 5 IV Smartphone Review – The Sony Xperia 5 Mark four is a new flagship phone that launched in September 2022. With this device, the company won’t perform any major updates or changes in the specs compared to the last year’s Mark three model. Besides this, the design and overall appearance are almost identical with a few noticeable changes in the bezels of the front display. Aside from this, the company does improve its performance.
Alongside this, you will attain a slightly better selfie lens and a handful of other things, which will enhance the overall user experience of this phone. Sony smartphones are usually known for their raw photo quality and advanced camera tech, and the Sony Xperia 5 IV comes with everything that is needed in the camera-centric phone. But, you won’t suggest you purchase this phone right away and recommend checking the Sony Xperia 5 IV review to make the final call.
Table of Contents
Sony Xperia 5 IV Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The Sony Xperia 5 Mark four equips a decent 6.1-inches OLED panel rendering top-notch colors and contrast.
- As for the hardware, the phone arrives with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset with Adreno 730 GPU.
- On the other hand, you will obtain the latest Android 12 out of the box.
- A 12MP triple camera module gives flagship-level photography and videography along with a 12MP selfie lens.
- Under the hood, a massive Li-Po 5000 mAh battery has accompanied the phone.
Design and Display
In the android segment, you will find a wide range of fancy design layout phones. But Sony is staying with its minimalistic and flat design, which makes the phone difficult to stand out from the rest of the competition. The overall built quality is superb as you are getting coring gorilla glass Victus protection on the screen with a glass back. Hopefully, this time, the smartphone maker release a color variant.
The Sony Xperia 5 IV can be purchased in Green, Black, and Ecru White. Each shade option looks pretty appealing and attractive in the first impression, but if you are looking for something out of the box, we will suggest you check out the Green color variant. Besides this, the phone is quite a slim 8.2-mm frame with roughly 172-gram weight even though there’s a massive battery inside.
Moving to the front section, the phone comes with a compact 6.1-inches OLED panel that has the regular side-mounted fingerprint scanner and surprisingly, a dedicated 3.5 mm jack at the bottom. Following this, the display also renders a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling, while the colors, contrast, and saturation on the screen look fabulous. Moreover, the IP rating gives exceptional value to the users, and haptic feedback is worth noting.
Memory and Internal
The performance department of the Sony Xperia 5 IV is led by the 4nm Qualcomm SM8450 Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, which might not have the best cooling support as the latest 8+ Gen 1 chip. Though the processor is designed to handle flagship-level power and the octa-core processor does render the full potential of this phone. Besides this, the Adreno 730 GPU grants ample visuals. It also supports 5G connectivity which automatically makes this phone one of the best 5G phones on the market.
The gameplay experience with the Xperia 5 Mark four is subtle thanks to the advanced refresh rate and sharp HDR support. On the other hand, the handset comes with a pretty clean UI experience of the Android 12 without any bloatware apps or ad notifications. The overall interface usage feels good as you don’t bother by anything, while at the same time, getting additional customization options too.
The smartphone makers come with a practical approach while providing storage variant options as you can choose between 128GB to 256GB of internal space, which is more than sufficient for every user’s needs. Plus, the phone also renders 8GB RAM, which will ensure to provide exceptional performance during usage. Furthermore, you will also acquire a share SIM slot, you can either expand space or use a dual SIM.
Camera
There can be a whole post about how to use the camera app on Sony smartphones as you will receive lots of perks, features, filters, and modes that usually don’t appear on any android smartphone. Basically, most of the brands rely on the image processing unit and let AI do all of the processes. However, the Sony Xperia 5 IV provides a wide range of features to take photos and videos manually.
Although understanding each feature will take some time, when you have mastered the camera app usage, you can capture your life moments with the fine tone, proper colors, and contrast with a sprinkle of dynamic range. Besides this, you will also attain Cinematic Pro and Video Pro to record up to 4K resolution professional videos with amazing 5-axis gyro stabilization support.
The daylight photos come out natural with the 12MP primary lens, which also has decent OIS support. Alongside this, the lowlight photos always come out pretty crisp and you will notice fine details in each shot. As for the 12MP ultra-wide lens, we do notice noise on the close inspection, but they are pretty much negligible when it comes to the rich details. The ultra-wide photos are on par with the flagship level effortlessly.
Aside from this, there’s a 12MP telephoto lens that captures immersive photos with portrait mode, while the main camera portrait photos are also fine. But the telephoto lens at more details in each snap and grants zooming ability up to 2.5x zoom. Photos with the telephotos lens will provide a sharp contrast, crisp details, beautiful colors, and decent saturation. But at the same time, they lack dynamic range.
Lastly, let’s talk about the selfie camera, the 12MP selfie comes with proper colors and contrast that makes the overall photos and video quality from the front camera wonderful. As for video recording, you will obtain diverse functions to record videos, and it’s even possible to record 4K video at 30fps without any hassle.
Battery and Others
The battery capacity jumped nearly 11% compared to the last year’s model Xperia 5 III. Here, you will receive a Li-Po 5000 mAh battery on the Xperia 5 IV, and the phone will also support fast charging. Although, you have to purchase the charger exclusively. With a huge battery size, you will get respectable screen time for your daily activities with lots of functions and features to optimize the battery life.
On the other hand, the phone needs roughly an hour and a half to refuel the battery from flat to a hundred. But, it’s noteworthy that it’s the Xperia 5 Series has wireless charging support. Usually, the wireless charging features were exclusive to the Xperia 1 series phones, which were overkill in most sections. Finally, let’s talk about the price point, the Sony Xperia 5 IV smartphone cost $999 (Rs. 79,499) approx.
Sony Xperia 5 IV Pros and Cons
Sony Xperia 5 IV Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Sony Xperia 5 IV smartphone.
Specifications | Sony Xperia 5 IV |
Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
Announced | September 2022 |
SIM | Hybrid Dual SIM |
Dimensions | 6.14 x 2.64 x 0.32 inches |
Weight | 172 g |
Size | 6.1 inches |
Display | OLED 1B colors 120Hz HDR BT.2020 21:9 ratio ~449 PPI density |
Protection/Others | Corning Gorilla Glass Victus IP65/IP68 dust/water resistant |
Resolution | 1080 x 2520 pixels |
OS | Android 12 |
Chipset | 4nm – Qualcomm SM8450 Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 |
CPU | Octa-core 1×3.00 GHz Cortex-X2 3×2.50 GHz Cortex-A710 4×1.80 GHz Cortex-A510 |
GPU | Adreno 730 |
Card slot | microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot) |
RAM | 8GB |
Internal | 128GB, 256GB UFS 3.X |
Camera | 12 MP (wide), Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS 12 MP (telephoto), Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS 12 MP (124Ëšultrawide), Dual Pixel PDAF Zeiss optics, LED flash, panorama, HDR, eye tracking Max – 4K@24/25/30/60/120fps HDR, 5-axis gyro-EIS, OIS Native Sony Alpha camera support |
Selfie | 12 MP (wide) HDR Max – 4K@30fps, 5-axis gyro-EIS |
Loudspeaker | Yes (stereo speakers) |
3.5mm jack | Yes 24-bit/192kHz audio Dynamic vibration system |
WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e, tri-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot |
Bluetooth | 5.2, A2DP, aptX HD, LE |
GPS | Yes, with dual-band A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO, QZSS |
NFC | Yes |
Infrared port | No |
Radio | No |
USB | USB Type-C 3.1, USB On-The-Go, video output |
Sensors | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, barometer compass, color spectrum |
Battery | Li-Po 5000 mAh Fast charging 50% in 30 min Wireless charging Reverse wireless charging USB Power Delivery 3.0 |
Colors | Green, Black, Ecru White |
Expected Price | $999 (Rs 79,499 in India) approx. |
Conclusion
The Sony Xperia 5 IV smartphone does improve in terms of display quality, powerful performance, long-lasting battery, Pro camera tools, immersive camera software, and wireless charging compare to the previous gen phone. However, there’s no doubt that the phone does have a few flaws such as it doesn’t get top-level performance, definitely not a gaming phone with stable performance.
If you are looking for a better gaming experience, we would recommend you to check out the Red Magic 7S, while on the other hand, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra will give tough competition to this phone with its overall decent specs and 4 years of software support. Aside from this, the iPhone 13 Pro also comes as an all-rounder choice. If you want to experience pro levels of photography and videography, the Sony Xperia 5 IV is a great option.