Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) Specifications, Tests and Review

The Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) has dimensions 158 mm × 68 mm × 8.2 mm. Its weight is 164 g.

The screen size reaches 6.1" inches. With a large display, phone offers a great experience for watching videos, playing games and reading. The best phones today are 6.5'' or more. They have the advantage of a large display area that allows you to see more content than with conventional display sizes. Owing to OLED technology, the display offers a true representation of colours, especially black. The resulting contrast is significantly higher and colours appear more vivid. OLED technology is now part of most smartphones, while LCD displays are becoming a thing of the past in mobile phones. OLED displays also have lower power consumption compared to LCD technology.

Display Resolution of Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) is 2520 x 1080 pixels. A higher display resolution is a prerequisite for a sharper image. The standard for mid-range phones today is a Full HD resolution of 1920 × 1080 px. Cheaper phones, which usually have a smaller diagonal, have an HD resolution of 1280 × 720 px. Smaller resolutions can only be found in older models. Best phones, on the other hand, have a 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160 px.

Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) is supplied with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. The number of processor cores is 8. It is a number of cores that plays an important role in evaluating the performance of phone as it is responsible for computing operations. Smartphones already commonly have a core count of around 4 to 8. Multi-core processors can perform better and reduce the processing time of a request to a minimum, which is reflected in the responsiveness of the phone, e.g. in the speed of opening applications.

One of the most important parameters for user´s decision is often internal memory capacity. The larger it is, the more apps, photos, movies and other files your phone can store. This phone has 128 GB storage. It is currently the most common storage size among today´s smartphones. The capacity is perfectly adequate for the average user. It will allow you to store thousands of photos, high-resolution videos, dozens of apps and several games on your phone. But if you're one of those really demanding users and you use your phone to shoot 4K videos etc., then you should rather pay extra to have a larger storage of 256 GB or more. Nowadays, you can usually find one phone model on the market with several different memory sizes. This allows each user to choose what suits them best.

For this model it is possible to increase the storage size by inserting a memory card.

Size of the RAM memory tells us how powerful the phone is. Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) is equipped with 6 GB. Commonly today you will find phones with 6 to 8 GB of RAM. This means that the phone can easily handle normal operation and more demanding applications or games. Higher RAM of 12 GB can be found in best phones on market and are ideal especially for avid gamers. On the other hand, operating memory below 4 GB is more of an issue with lower-end phones and older models. However, even they will find their fans among less demanding users, who don´t want to spend much on buying new phone.

The rear camera of the phone Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) has 3 lenses. Today's modern phones usually have several rear lenses. The most common are macro lens, telephoto lens and wide-angle lens. Each is used to capture the perfect photo - macro lens is designed for close-up photography, telephoto lens, often equipped with an optical zoom, is for photos of objects in distance, and wide-angle lens captures larger areas where you need a wider field of view. The resolution of main lens is 12 Megapixel. Nonetheless, resolution alone does not necessarily mean a good photo. Therefore, you should look at other parameters such as lens aperture or pixel size. Pixel size is typically around 0.8-1.8 μm in better mobile phones. The higher the value, the better the quality of the resulting photo should be. In the case of main lens, the pixel size reaches 1.4 μm.

The size of the phone's sensor is also among the parameters that affect quality of the photo. In case of Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM), it is 1/2.6". Focus mainly on the value after the slash, where the higher it is, the better photo quality will be. Another important factor is the aperture, which in this case is F/1.6 and determines how much light passes through the sensor. Best phones have an aperture of up to F/1.5. But the most common lenses today are F/1.8 to F/2.2. In this case, the lower the number after the slash, the higher the photo quality.

Digital zoom in this case offers zooming up to 5x. Of course, the higher the lens value, the more distant object can be zoomed in. Nonetheless, the disadvantage of digital zoom is that the quality and sharpness of photo deteriorates when using it. Much more important is the optical zoom, which has the advantage of not losing quality and sharpness when zooming in. On this phone, the optical zoom is 2x. An undeniable advantage is the optical image stabilisation, which makes image significantly more stable without any loss in quality. Cheaper phone models are equipped with electronic stabilisation, which has a negative effect on the resulting image quality.

Second camera
The second lens of rear camera is designed as Super wide-angle lens. The field of view of second lens reaches 130 degree(s). The resolution reaches size of 12 Megapixel. Pixel size in this case is 1 μm. In addition, this lens also features lens aperture of F/2.4.

Third camera
The lens achieves a field of view of up to 45 degree(s). The resolution of third lens is then 12 Megapixel. The pixel size that significantly affects quality of photo is 1 μm. The aperture reaches size of F/2.4.

Front camera
The front camera of phone Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) has one lens. This number of lenses is standard on most smartphones nowadays. The lens is equipped with 8 Megapixel. However, do not forget there are other factors than resolution having impact on the final quality of front camera photos. The pixel size itself is 1.12 μm. The main front lens also achieves F/2.0.

The facial recognition feature is just a nice cherry on top.

The battery size of Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) is 3140 mAh. Nevertheless, battery capacity is not the only factor that affects the phone's battery life. For example - the size of the display, the performance of the processor, the use of data functions and, of course, the intensity of use of phone in general all have a significant impact on battery life. Standard for most smartphones today is a battery capacity of around 4500 to 5000 mAH. Phones with this battery size usually guarantee a phone life of at least 1 day. Older or cheaper smartphone models can then reach battery capacities typically around 2500 mAH and below. With this capacity, you may find that if you use your phone heavily, you may need to recharge your phone during the day. The fast charging function will also please many people. Owing to fast charging, phone charges up to several times faster, which you will appreciate, for example, on the go.

Standard 4G connectivity is currently being replaced by 5G, but is still the preserve of the latest phones. Sony XPERIA 5 (Single-SIM) supports 4G. 3G connectivity is now only found in the oldest phones. The operating system in the case of this model is Android 9.0 Pie.

Contactless payments are not a problem with this phone, thanks to NFC function. It can also be used, for example, to unlock doors or load menus in a restaurant using an NFC tag. Bluetooth 5.0 must not be missing from the basic package. It makes it easy to connect wireless headphones to your phone, connect your phone to your TV, tablet, speaker and more.