The Sony Xperia 5 II Turns Me On... By Unbox Therapy

You want this phone if you care about video and photo if you care about control, if you want something like a DSLR or mirrorless experience inside a smartphone, there's, probably nothing closer than this triple camera setup three times: 12 megapixel, 8, megapixel, selfie, camera on the front, FHD plus HDR OLED display 6.1 inches four thousand William hour battery snapdragon, 865 and ip6568. It's also got expandable storage via micro SD. Let's pull this out now the trademark of these Sony devices is oh, my god, this one's even comfier than the previous one that is so comfy because they're narrow they're so easy to hold in one hand, but you still have a 6.1-inch screen now, of course, it's not all bonus here, because a lot of content is not this wide. Therefore, you're going to have black bars on each side, full device, that's kind of funny. If you look at this versus this, but I think it's an it's a valid trade-off. This might be the most comfortable single-handed phone I've ever held.

Quite possibly that's a real-time reaction. A part of it is the way they've curved the edges as well. It's just it's very friendly to your hand. Also, inside the package we have an 18 watt, USB pd power, brick same one that you get in the flagship model, the Xperia one too it's, actually. This is a flagship too they're, both flagships, just different sizes.

I think that's the way I'm looking at it. We have an USB type-c, cable and oh, would you look at that that my friends is a dedicated headset, in-ear style with interchangeable, ear tips, and it's a mini jack connection. We've also got the headphone connector, which this is increasingly difficult to find, and you have it here. This phone has a little of everything in it. So let me just remove the plastic.

Very nice fingerprint scanner over here on the thumb section, which is also the power switch lines up just so beautifully. I've been so used to the side, fingerprint scanner, not a big deal to me at all. We have dedicated buttons for creativity, dedicated buttons for your camera modes, and so you can just hold it up and kind of snap photos in the old-fashioned way very confidence inspiring. When you compare it to tapping on the display, you don't need it, but it's nice to have it. I'm assuming this is your volume rocker just up above the power switch over on the other side.

This is what I was talking about. I don't know if everyone's going to appreciate this, but for me the ability to just stick your finger in there and pull out the entire tray. I just it's just so convenient for me, and it's not just for sim cards. Of course the micro SD fits into there as well, and so, if you have to offload a ton of footage, you could just quickly pop this out hand off the SD card to someone else. It's greater flexibility, and somehow they still manage that IP certification, even though it's just your thumb to take it out it all seals up with a gasket in there top of the device is where you'll find that headphone jack.

That I mentioned down on the bottom: it's going to be your USB type c, connector and the microphone and then on the rear of the device. You see that triple camera 12 megapixels on each setup, of course, different focal ranges supplied there, there's a flash, a little NFC logo over there as well. It's a very simple utilitarian design. It's kind of what Sony is known for here. This is the black.

This is the most subdued straight to the point. So let's go ahead and boot this up. Another thing that happens with these Sony devices is very little in the way of altering the android experience outside of things you would actually want, which are those special applications for photo pro and cinema pro there's also a game enhancer. Here's the thing Sony is involved in so many segments within the tech space from phones to cameras to gaming. PlayStation is getting a lot of talk right now, but Sony's been doing everything TVs displays some of my favorite headphones in a smartphone which kind of acts as a hub for all these various things.

Sony does have a kind of advantage there where they can pull from their camera department. They can pull from their game department, but one thing I like that they didn't do is mess with android too much and as you look through here, if I go ahead and launch into settings, it's all very stock android like and look how comfy the single-handed is. So by default out of the box, it's not in 120 hertz. Instead, it looks like it's in 60 hertz, and you have to toggle on the high refresh to bring it up to 120. Of course, I'm going to do that on a device this size with a 4 000 William hour battery, it should be a decent battery performer.

But it's a know: it's a tiny little one. It's an it's a portable device. It's a single-handed, it's a kind of slightly different pitch than all the gigantic flagships that are out there, and I know that's what some people want in the android space Sony's given it to you, try to find a snapdragon 865 in something this light and slender it's difficult, but we have it here, and we have the 120 and all of a sudden. Would you look at that, something that was missing from the Xperia one now, of course we had to go down in resolution FHD plus in order to achieve that, but by scaling down the size that doesn't really matter anyways, because then we probably have too many pixels for a 6.1 inch display? Now you know I like to get up close and personal. I could probably pick out the pixel difference, but in most cases on a 6.1 inch device, I'm going to take the faster refresh, because I can notice that from here it gets buttery smooth. You may not be able to see it in video, but I promise you it's there.

The butter is present. Now things get really magical when you launch into the Sony specific apps like cinema pro, it just gets out of hand powered by Kinney alto, which of course is their cinema branded stuff. You can apply, looks you can set up a project, your fps, your resolution, it's just a ton of control to have on your smartphone you're, totally not used to it. It's out of hand, you're picking your codec you're. Seeing your memory, I mean you could pick look hog.

I can go in here and set manual or autofocus my different lenses, 16 24 70. You can see your f-stop your maximum f-stop in there as well project fps resolution. Uh, your I mean your ISO. Your shutter angle, never mind speed your angle because we're in cinema land, so I go ahead, and I just shoot a video. Oh, right now the look is Venice cs, which they're pulling from their much more expensive cameras and- and the reason you want to shoot in a flat profile like is provided here in the cinema mode, is because then, when you go to edit the footage you have way more to play with.

In terms of shadow detail highlight detail, you can kind of make it look. However, you want, and you're also going to be hearing the audio recorded through this device as well. So there's a little sample clip for the video now. The same thing is true within the photo pro mode. This is essentially the exact same interface as what you would get on their semi pro or even pro equipment in the photo space.

This is the most important part. Okay, Sony has some of the best face and eye tracking autofocus in the entire business when it comes to cameras, the fact that that same software and those same algorithms exist inside a smartphone where I can just go over here and turn on face tracking for autofocus. I'm just going to go out and say you know that I use a lot of smartphones. I use them all everything that comes through there's, no other smartphone. That gives you as much of the camera experience that this one does all the controls and the feeling of handling the device.

This is your shutter button up top, so you can maintain a visual on all your controls, as you, snap a photo boom, and then I can go in and switch the lens 16 ultra-wide switch the lens to a 7d. That's your zoom! So this gives you an idea of the different focal ranges. That is your standard range. That's your highest performer! The ultra-wide looks great, and you can see the color temperature is identical through the different shots, which is not always the case with multi-camera smartphones. So you have a little of camera versatility in there, which is obviously nice to have as well.

It has a regular camera mode. By the way you can still launch into something that looks like it almost looks like the Google camera app, and it's just a shutter button, and you can still use your mechanical shutter and that's fine for a quick photo if you're like me, and you're a bit of a geek when it comes to camera stuff, at least you know you can really dive in there if you choose to, and if you want to and certainly for video mode. I think it's worthwhile because chances are you're going to edit that footage later, and you may want to play with the look and feel of it, and you just have more information to work with if you use the cinema pro application, whoa all right. So there's a vibration mode in here where the device, almost it shakes a little. You can turn it on or off to sort of increase the thump of the audio that you're listening to it's so strange.

There is actually sound coming out of the rear panel. Of course, there's sound coming out of the earpiece section and sound coming out of the bottom here, totally room of their house. What you really want is a drone. It's a pretty satisfying speaker experience, there's some configurability into how that sounds. I like the audio performance on here, but this is the thing you're going to be concerned with.

So obviously, you have a very tall device and an unusual aspect ratio and there's content that you're going to run into that's regular 16 by 9 stuff. So you're wondering well Lou what happens when I zoom in, and it really depends on the content. The loo later show it kind of works. I mean it still works, because I have lots of headroom. If you have cinema content, then you're actually going to see more of the frame than if you were to crop in on a different aspect ratio, because that content is shot very wide.

So there's no notch no distraction, but it's not the most aggressive screen to body ratio. That's out there we're registering on the side the central part of the finger and as mentioned I've grown accustomed to this input, I think even apple on the upcoming iPad is going with a power button, fingerprint input. So if you're, if you're completely locked, you can just lay your thumb on there, you don't actually have to even click the button, but if you're in the sort of semi-unlocked mode just lay your thumb on and unlock it like that. This is it's: it's a very straightforward. It's a comfortable thing, it's especially comfortable on this device, since it is a one-handed masterpiece, it's its so easy and comfortable to hold in one.

I don't care what size your hand is. I mean even a child. Furthermore, I think, could comfortably hold this thing and reach the opposite side of the screen. Now another Sony specific. Here we have game enhancer.

You have to believe they're pulling something from there a PlayStation background here into this mode and prevent notifications from showing up while gaming carry out searches, easily capture your most epic gaming moments with screenshot burst change, performance settings click in the top I can see. I could pick between performance preferred versus a balance between battery life. I'm going to go for performance, preferred here, uh focus settings. Look at this release, ram, hide notifications, it's a ton of settings and optimizations. I can also record my gameplay take a screenshot and so on whoa wait a sec.

I think this is 120. whoa, wow that is so twitchy. Oh, I got a sniper now. Oh, wow! This is an experience. It's a Xperia experience.

Look! I'm a fan of these products, I'm a fan of Sony making phones. I think they have a unique advantage. As mentioned with the experience in those various other technology segments, they can take what they learned and apply it here in the form of applications. The whole thing feels really elegant, refined, it's comfy to hold, and it's an option now for people who want flagship features inside a package. That's just a little lighter and a little more portable, while still having expandable storage.

Headphone jack is still there a 120 hertz. I mean you see where I'm going here. So I was a fan of the Xperia 1 mark ii. That turned me on and now the Xperia 5 mark ii also turns me on for less money, this one's around 950 bucks. I know it's not cheap, but look at the spec list.

You might be surprised you.

Source : Unbox Therapy