IFA brought some great devices, but at the same time Sony was busy as well releasing their latest smart phones and the Xperia Z5 Premium was one of them. What blew most people away was the fact that Sony decided to pack a 4K display on the 5.5-inch device – a first in the smartphone industry. But it certainly isn’t cheap because native 4K content isn’t easy to find. Sony’s latest statement answers some questions but we’ll have to see how well it attempts to levitate this problem.
What the Japanese manufacturer attempts to do is downgrade non-4K content to a more reasonable 1080p, although it won’t sacrifice any proper 4K content, ensuring you’ll still get the most pixels. Here’s a snippet of what Sony said:
“Xperia Z5 Premium uses its 4K display when you’re viewing either the 4K content you’ve captured using your device or third-party 4K content from streaming services – all other content (including the homescreen and apps) are displayed in 1080p Full HD or lower resolution to simply optimise performance, power consumption and battery stamina so you can use the device for up to two days without charging. “
They then offer an explanation as for why they decided to do so:
There’s a few reasons – first up, after extensive user research and testing we found that rendering entertainment content in 4K, but still being able to access and use all the other great Sony smartphone features as normal without compromising on battery life, was an absolute priority for users.
Secondly, many third-party apps are not designed or capable of running at 4K resolution (yet), but as Xperia Z5 Premium’s display hardware has a 3840×2160 resolution (4K SID standard) with 806ppi, we feel we’ve created a future-proof device for the imaginations, developers and apps of the future.”
It’s great that Sony has chosen to address these concerns and the reasons listed do make sense. Adding to that, the statement goes on to say that presently, the microSD slot handles cards up to 200GB just fine so 4K recordings won’t cause your phone’s memory to be maxed out so quickly.
In the instance that you’ve yet to hear about the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium, let us jog your memory a bit. The device runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor that’s surely to give you enough power to handle all your tasks. While it’s RAM is listed at 3GB and the internal storage is 32GB (expanded to the amount earlier stated). And yes, the screen is a 4K 5.5-inch that has a mind-blowing 806 PPI (3840 x 2160 resolution)
The rear camera on the device (1/2.3″ 23-megapixel Exmor RS) has already received the seal of approval from Dxomark, who’ve rated the latest Sony smartphone the best-in-camera title – you’ll be able to read-up on that in a follow-up post.
It’s battery is rated at 3430 mAh; rather big for regular phones but Sony would be the first to show how 4K screens will affect a device’s battery life – they however rate the battery to last up to 2 days (dependent on your personal usage habits, of course). The phone also features Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0, so that should help giving your battery a quick boost if it needs it.
You can check out our post here for more info about the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium.
