Sony Xperia 5 IV, analysis: the spirit of the Xperia is more alive than ever (and free of ghosts)

Unmoved by the direction of the market, its diabolical turns and everything else. This is how it looks year after year Sony when we refer to the world of the smartphone.

The new Sony Xperia 5 IV is probably the most authentic recent Sony Xperia while showing us that it doesn’t want to give up on today’s big battlefield: the photograph. Its great secret is none other than to make us feel that we have an Alpha camera of the brand in our hands using a truly unique design in the current high-end mobile catalog.

Sony Xperia 5 IV data sheet

The compact Sony Xperia ever

Although many brands boast of offering something different in terms of design in their smartphones, very few, but really very few current smartphones can say without blushing or blatantly lying that they offer something different.

The last classic, as Loquillo would say

The Sony Xperia 5IV, with its very narrow design, its “contained” screen and completely straight lines, achieves this. Not everyone who has not had an Xperia in their hands before will like its very long and narrow format or its regular shapes, but there is no doubt that it is not a smartphone to use at the design level.

Those with especially large hands may find it strange to write on a narrow screenbut it’s easy to get used to thanks to the precision of the tactile touch on it and the good vibration response.

Without neglecting what makes it special, the new Sony Xperia 5 IV improves to the touch thanks to its beveled edges in a very subtle way but enough to be a delight in hand.

This comfort in hand contributes from the weight of only 172 grams to the best integration of the aluminum frame with the screen and back of the phone, which is made of glass with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection.

This glass back, with a matte type finish in the black tone that we have tested, it is amazingly resistant to fingerprints or dirt. On a day-to-day basis and without strange situations, it is very difficult for any trace to remain that we have had it in our hands or grabbed it.

And in any case, we can clean it if we wish, because this Sony Xperia 5 IV is waterproof (IPX5/IPX8 certification).

Nor does Sony decline in other design aspects that have already been associated with the Xperia and that are quite successful. From headphone port maintenance to physical button to shoot with the camerathe home button with a fingerprint reader perfectly located at the height of the inch or even the card tray (dual SIM that includes eSIM and microSD) that does not require an accessory to be removed.

Regarding biometric identification, the fingerprint reader is exclusively kept on the start button, so it is far from the competition in that aspect. In addition, although its situation is ideal, we are not facing a fingerprint reader of the fastest on this side of the Segura.

As a curiosity and for those especially aware of the fair use of materials for product packaging, it should be mentioned that the Sony Xperia 5 IV does not include any accessory elements. Just the essentials.

The box is one of the most compact we have seen for a high-end smartphone, it does not include plastic in the packaging and it comes without a charger or cable.

All screen…literally

Something that is never negotiable in the Sony Xperia is the screen. It is its main bet since the beginning of time and in this Xperia 5 IV model, a panel of 6.1-inch type AMOLED and with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which unfortunately remains fixed and not adaptiveso there are only options to place manually or 120 or 60 Hz.

The frames, especially the upper one, is not something that our eyes are already used to

resolution is FHD+ (2520×1080 pixels), one of the differences with the models of the entire brand.

The Sony Xperia 5 IV maintains the stereo speakers placed in the upper and lower frames, which greatly benefits the sound that we get directly from the terminal when we do not use headphones.

The surround effect is quite successful due to the balanced distribution of power between the two speakers and their separation due to the widescreen format of the screen. But it is not the smartphone that has surprised us the most at the sound level this year.

Power under Android 12

There are no excessive surprises at the hardware level in this Sony Xperia 5IV. The processor is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 accompanied by 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB internal memory that, although we can expand with microSDXC cards, it falls short for a terminal of this range.

There is also no news regarding the behavior of this processor in a body that, already in previous generations, has been shown excessively sensitive to internal heating for Sony’s little effort to solve this matter.

That as soon as we activate the camera we are already warned that excessive heat is not difficult to achieve and that then something as essential in a smartphone as the image-taking function cannot be used is not a good letter of introduction.

Until that happens, the Sony Xperia 5 IV fulfills as a functioning terminal fully fluentsupported by the 120 Hz that we must activate manually and that are especially noticeable when we move through the terminal interface.

Performance reduction in 20 minute test

But, as expected, when we want the processor of this Sony Xperia to offer everything it is capable of doing, the damn thing appears. overheating of the team. It is very easily noticeable in the casing and although it does not prevent us from using the terminal, it is uncomfortable.

In addition, it causes that the performance when we play or we want to maintain a sustained performance is somewhat diminished and that even the high 120Hz refresh rate is suspended until further order from the system.

It is also true that this situation has basically occurred outdoors with hot days already.

As to performance gross, the figures of our tests with benchmarks remain within expected margins, as we can see in the following table:

Betting everything on video and photo applications

East Sony Xperia 5IV It is presented in partnership with an Android brand of the house, which is none other than version 12 but customized just enough and necessary, in addition to the specific services and applications of the brand itself that, unlike other manufacturers, do not duplicate Android functionalities but offer a very well implemented and ambitious extra.

Sony’s layer comes with a couple of apps already pre-installed, but they are very few. What we do find is the complete package of Sony add-ons associated with the