"Compact" was once | Sony Xperia 5 II Review By Damir Franc

Damn, the recording of the German version worked out anything but movement. So far, this one doesn't seem to be any better. So let me give this one more try and no matter how often I'm going for the intro. It will sound, pretty arrogant anyways, so I'm trying to be at least diplomatically enough not to trigger anyone on purpose. By saying the following: the Sony, Xperia 5 2 is at least in some points, dumb. No, no, no put the keyboard away, I'm not done yet, but it's also amazing and yes, it can be one thing and the other one.

So I'm appealing here to the Sony fan base, who only seem to hear the 10 that are not that positive and only focus on that. There is 90 of positive stuff that, for some reason you aren't able to hear whenever I'm doing a Sony review. So once again the Sony Xperia 5 2 is amazing, but just because it is amazing doesn't mean it's perfect or there are some objective or subjective parts that should be pointed out and that's what I'm trying to do today, nothing more nothing less. I hope. That's! Okay, and if it isn't the first subjective part, is definitely one thing that I've already made a specific video about it's the form factor.

I am not a fan of 21x9, especially with the borders. In my opinion, it's still done. Yes, it's amazing that it's a little more narrow that I can use it with one hand, but especially in my pocket, there is no benefit because it's almost as tall as any other phone. So it's cool that Sony tried to make a smaller phone, but it's not a compact phone like the pixel or the smaller iPhones. It is just a narrow phone, but it's still almost as tall, but that aside, I would have actually if this had been, maybe like half an inch shorter, giving it five stars, because the fingerprint reader is on a perfect location, it's so easy and intuitive to hit it's very reliable.

Once you take it out of the pocket, you can put your finger there, and you feel the vibration it unlocks pretty much everyone it's better than I actually thought it would be. Then easy access to the volume rocker. We have a voice assistant button and a camera button. We also have a pretty small hump, I would still say for the camera. Furthermore, we have yes, a 3.5 millimeter jack, a sim card, tray, USB-C, microphone and front-facing stairs, because then what we actually don't have- and it's a good thing- we have no notch or anything else. Yes, we have a little bigger borders, but that, in my opinion, is fine, also a flat display and, in my opinion, one of the maybe things that aren't appreciated enough an amazing audio phobic coating.

This is super easy to clean, and it feels super smooth, especially with the 120 frames that we will go into later. This is an absolute blast, so let's actually talk already about the display go into the display settings image settings controls. We don't really have much, because we have to create the much which is very accurate. It looks like my calibrated monitor, that is nice, but the standard mode could have a little more pop or maybe just give me an option to have that like, for example, with the video enhancement, because this boosts videos, which is pretty nice, but I think actually for videos over the top. But I would like to see this to be a system-wide thing, but we don't have this, which is something that I really would have liked to see in, because I'm used to it from Samsung phones, Xiaomi phones, Webb or even OnePlus.

Anyone pretty much offers this. They don't, and this is something yeah. We will talk about a little later in the software as well, but white balance is still there. We can change to 120 or if you don't want it, 60 brightness level is there and nothing else more to really get into more? Besides, maybe the always on display, which is always the thing that I like to see and talk about the quality. It is absolutely bright enough.

Viewing angles are great, colors are accurate, but maybe not that popping 120 hertz. We will talk about that in the performance. Later, absolutely amazing top-notch display sound. Let's talk about that one, and yes, it's my old, pretty boring sample. Okay.

This is the first part where you could get me wrong. So I'm trying to tell you as easy to understand as possible. It is a pretty good speaker, but not a very good one, why there are, and that's just for a fact, louder speakers out there and some that just sound also better. This one, especially in the mid, sounds a little thin. It sounds a little tinny overall bass is quite good, but due to the device being pretty lightweight it, vibrates also, which is a little on the annoying side and the highs are good and everything is fine, but there is a little of some tininess some little fin part in the middle, and there are phones that maybe don't have proper stereo front facing speaker, which you would say this is better for sure.

It's not because there are some that are just the speaker and the earpiece that just overall sound better, and it doesn't have to be on dog, but some Xiaomi phones, Huawei phones, pixels, maybe, and definitely one plus, just sound over a better. But to get to the point. It is loud enough and it sounds good enough. It's maybe not the top of the top, but it's at least at the bottom of the top. If you get what I mean, plus the fact that it has a headphone jacker, which is super important for a lot of things, the only reason why I find it actually pretty cool because you can easily plug in a microphone which you can't on the other ones without a dongle.

So even if I'm not the biggest fan of the quality itself, which, in my opinion, still doesn't give you enough power for a proper over here, maybe for on more efficiently in here. It's fine for anything more and the quality is good, but it's nothing special out there. So I know to appreciate it's being there, and it never should have left in the first place. But it's nothing special, it's just for effect, and I know a lot of people will disagree with me so performance. We can all agree on that.

This is crazy fast. It's super smooth due to 120, hertz and being able to push that superfast. The multitasking is fast. The storage is fast. It's its an absolute blast to be used.

Obviously it now has to refresh not sure why everything was actually loaded in the first place, but it is an amazing experience. It is superfast, multitasking everything I'm not gonna, go into that any further. This is as good as it can be, but it's also pretty much as fast as all the other phones with the same chipset. So don't expect anything more due to the 120 hertz on some Sony magic. It feels a little smoother than even the best 120hz displays out there, but that's kind of so marginal.

It doesn't really matter, but otherwise absolutely I can't really talk about warmth or heat, because it's so cold here that it didn't really warm up. Anyways. Okay, let's talk about battery on the. Not that great part is that it doesn't have the fastest charging. There are phones with 60 watts and even faster out there, and it would be cool, especially if you maybe forget to charge it overnight or maybe, if you have to go somewhere quickly and give it a little of a top off, it would have been nice to maybe be able to in 20 minutes or 30 minutes to pretty much charge it fully where here it takes like, I don't know it didn't really measure it, but almost maybe an hour and a half, but for those who, maybe just as I would in normal use, charge it overnight.

It's cool to have the option that it will slowly charge not put too much stress on the battery and then fully charge. Once you are awake, that's pretty nice, I'm not quite sure. How actually helpful is this over a long period of time, because in fear it sounds good, but maybe in reality it doesn't really make a difference, so not the fastest charging out there. For me, it's okay, especially since the battery life is perfect, because this is, I would say, on top of all the best flagships out there with the best ones out there I mean. Obviously there are some battery monsters with five and six thousand million hours, where this only has four thousand, obviously due to the smaller display and the 120 hertz.

It's nothing super crazy amazing, but it can compete with all the best ones and what I, for example, got over course of two days on Wi-Fi like five hours. Over one day, it usually looks like of half the charge like I could reach nine or ten hours on Wi-Fi. It usually ends up more at like seven. Over a normal day, I would say like between five and a half and six hours in mixed use always and depends obviously on your use and so on, but in mind. It was absolutely super satisfying I would easily get for today, even if I listen to music and a lot of other stuff, so I'm good with that and what I'm also good with, but just that is the software, because here's one thing everything that the software can do and what it offers is top-notch.

And if that's what you want and nothing more. This is a five-star software because super reliable, no hiccups, no nothing, but for people who are coming from a Samsung phone from a Huawei from a Xiaomi or maybe from an OnePlus, you are missing out on a lot of stuff, I mean yeah. We have the always on display, but, for example, we can't change the button layout. We have obviously the navigation gestures now, but no off-screen gestures, no customization in terms of the themes. Besides just the dark mode, and there are small little things like a free finger, maybe screenshot option to change what this button does and a lot of smaller things.

But I don't want to waste too much on this time. Like I said what it does, it does amazing, but if you are someone who actually knows to appreciate all those small, little sometimes gimmicky features, but sometimes actually useful features like the ones that I mentioned, or maybe the ones that you know you are missing out on that, otherwise you usually get a pretty long support. A pretty fast support. Reliability was always a good thing on Sony side in terms of software, so yeah it really comes down to what you want. If you are a bare-bones user who usually like stock android or something like the Pixar.

This has that, but almost nothing more. If you want more, maybe not the perfect phone for you and talking about not a perfect phone for you, that's it in terms of camera. I mean I made a specific video for that, but I just want to point out the highlights if you want a great selfie shooter, if you want the best auto camera very fast, like an experience from a Samsung phone or iPhone. This is not your fault. This is the phone that people want to want a lot of manual control, because there are two manual apps, for example, for video and for photo, and you obviously have manual controls in the app itself.

So if you have the time, if you have the skills and the patience to do it manually, you can get absolutely great results, maybe some better than with normal cameras, but, like I said on the auto part, but that's something that um Sony is pretty much used to and known by right now, not the best results. But what I have to also mention is very accurate pictures out of the box if you want that with a little of overexposing right now, but this will get fixed but more about that in the video I want to actually just summarize things again. So I don't know if you know my rating, but five gold stars is the highest one. I'm giving these four stars for the design and the only reason why four is that I'm not a fan of two by twenty-one by nine and that's obviously a suggested part, and you can pretty much seed was as you want, but if this phone had been like, I said, like maybe a half an inch shorter, five inches, because it's unnecessarily long, I don't see the benefit. I don't need to see that much screen, because it's not a useful screen that I have more of but, like I said, that's personal thing display five stars: absolutely because not five gold stars, because there are higher resolution ones and 120 hertz.

We see a little more often already these days, but in terms of quality. It's great. It's accurate, it's bright. A little more options in terms of customization would have been nice to give it a little more pop. The speaker, like I said, pretty good, but not very good.

There are a lot of ones that are better quality ones that is solid, absolutely and has a headphone jack nice performance yeah, absolutely at the top of the best ones and the camera and battery along with the best. What's out there, software I've talked about that pretty subjective part. If you want a lot of options, maybe not your thing. If you just want something super reliable with the typical option, then it's your thing and camera like I said for all the users, and who don't want to think much about and want it fast, not perfect, who people who have the time who have the skills manual? It's your thing so, like I said, amazing phone and the most important part for me is that this is a jack of all trades but master of none. But that's a good thing for me, because if it's maybe a master of something like, for example, the display but doesn't have the best performance doesn't have the best battery life for the camera.

This is also great because a high balance is way more important for me, because I rather have something that isn't the best at anything, but at the top of everything, or at least close to the top, because here this is the most important part. There is no downside if I would think about one thing that is maybe a possible deal break or annoying enough that I don't want it. I can't really think of anything for me actually, because I'm a little spoiled by now by software, I'm missing. That's mostly the one thing um a few software parts, maybe the design, but even those for me aren't enough not to say this is an amazing phone, but it is not enough to give it a full recommendation, just because of the price in Germany, not quite sure about the US, but it's 900 euros. I've seen deals where you can get it for less than 700, with an ANC, headphone and three gigabyte contract value is definitely way better, and at this point, if you want the great phone absolutely but for 900, I won't recommend it.

But I haven't done that for any flagship in the past two or three years, because I think everything above six seven hundreds is getting a little ridiculous. So if you want just great value, this is not the best phone like pretty much. No flagship is, but if you are saying I want the best phone, I want it now. I want it faster or whatever, and I don't care about the price, because I'm gonna got it on contract. Go for it.

It's amazing. If you just take the price out of the equation. This is some killer phone flawless, pretty much and on a super high level, if maybe not the best of the best in some categories, but it doesn't matter, but it's a hard sell at 900, like so many other ones. So once it's cheaper, I want to get on a great deal, absolutely totally yeah, not quite sure what else to say what I haven't said already now it's time for you to tell me in the comments and yeah. I wish you a nice day until next time, bye.

Source : Damir Franc