SONY XPERIA 5 IV — One word, Camera

Sometimes we expect a lot from a lot of bombastic features from any smart devices we could imagine. Be it smartphones, smartwatches, smart bands, you name it. And rarely, we come across smart devices that could provide features beyond the range of capabilities of a particular device. But Sony, being the legendary giant as it is, manages to provide something out of the ordinary — The Xperia 5 IV. A niche device with a market that is as niche as itself. But, in this case, it’s a good thing, given the narrowed audience that Sony catered to, they managed to pack Xperia 5 IV with features that perceive their reputation…. the camera.

CONTENT

There’s nothing much to talk about when it comes to the contents of the phone’s package. It’s just a plain white box with the phone name etched onto the front cover. What the package contained is just the Sony Xperia 5 IV itself along with the user manual. Nothing else, not even a charger or a USB cable, just the phone to kickstart your day.

DESIGN

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. That is what best describes the Sony Xperia 5 IV as a whole. There’s nothing too fancy or bombastic, just your normal everyday smartphone with a dimension of 156 x 67 x 8.2 mm. And by now you should notice that the phone is rather smaller by width compared to other typical smartphones out there, it’s just a long and beautiful-looking phone. It only weighs 172 g and the front screen is composed of Gorilla Glass Victus while the entire phone has an aluminum frame whereas the back of the phone is made out of good quality matte glass.

Buttons wise you’ll find the power button curve on the right side of the phone, below the volume buttons, and above the camera shutter button (more on that later). The 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top of the phone along with the secondary mic while the primary mic, USB C charging port, and hybrid SIM card slot is at the bottom of the phone. The SIM card holder is, unique to itself as it does not require any SIM card ejector pin to eject the SIM tray (Just like a sony camera when you need to insert extra storage via MicroSD). Moreover, the SIM slot below the tray acts as a second SIM holder OR a microSD holder, it’s a rather strange design but each to their own.

So now we got the design aside, here’s a more important question :

WHO IS THIS FOR?

The Sony Xperia 5 IV, is by no means a gaming phone, nor a flagship phone, but certainly not a phone that is categorised as a midrange phone either. It’s a phone created by Sony that solely catered to content creation, video blogging, or any other activities that involve creativity. So if you’re an influencer, then this phone is certainly for you. Why? Well here’s why:

CAMERA

Sony has always been well-known for either its prestige audio, camera, or both. So the Xperia 5 IV is no exception when it comes to the camera features performance. You could find the rear camera situated at the top left corner of the phone. It consists of a 12MP f/1.7 wide lens with OIS, a 12MP f/2.4 2.5x telephoto lens with OIS, and a 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide lens. Whereas the front camera at the top of the screen front consists of a 12MP f/2.0 lens. Impressive? I would say so.

With such a strong arsenal of camera lenses packed into this phone, it is guaranteed you could snap high-quality photos with the Xperia 5 IV. Based on the Sony Alpha series line, if you’re a photographer that prefers DSLR features, this phone is right for you. With a wide array of customisation, the Xperia 5 IV can be used for a variety of functions other than just birdwatching. If you are a creative media major student or work in the line of media, this is the phone for you as the pictures taken with the phone’s Camera Pro feature are breathtaking. Or if you are an indie movie director, this phone is definitely for you due to the Cinema pro and Video pro features. You won’t need to worry a thing when you’re taking night shots due to the phone’s outstanding low-light adjusting features.

The amount of freedom you can do with the customisation is only limited to your knowledge in photography and videography (case in point me). Other than the general Manuel Focus (MF) and Auto Focus (AF), you could also tweak the focus area colour, and object tracking, enabling modes such as the Auto mode that allow the camera to automatically detect the type of scene; Programe auto which allows the camera to control the shutter speed automatically; Shutter Speed Priority which allows you to manually control the shutter speed on how you capture moving objects; and Manual Exposure which also allows you to manually control shutter speed but also ISO sensitivity, giving you the freedom to play with motion blur.

Filming wise there are actually three options: Either use the video feature that came with the camera pro app for video graphing via the preset features in the Camera Pro, or you could use the Video Pro app for more customisation, or you could even use the Cinema Pro app for more professional video production. Every video taken could go up to 4K resolutions and up to 120fps HDR. Furthermore, you could save your videos in one of the two formats which are either H.264 (AVC) or H.265 (HAVC). You could also enable Intelligent Wind Filter to remove noises from the wind hitting the microphone during filming. These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to customisation and it is just only a few of a dozen features within the Video Pro application. With that being said, you can imagine how much more freedom you could have with the Video Pro and Cinema Pro features. This also means that making a movie won’t be much of a challenge for aspiring movie directors as this device has most of the features you need for filming and vlogging.

Let’s get back to Camera Pro, if all these sound overwhelming for you, you could always use the phone’s basic default settings, but do bear in mind that there will be a bit of underperformance since like the title suggests, “basic mode”. As with the wrong angle and lighting, the basic mode camera would produce rather subpar blurry photos especially when you’re using the 2.5x zooming lens for the shots. But it all boils down to one’s photography skills, timing, and angle while handling the shots.

The selfie camera on the other hand is rather okay so to say. With appropriate lighting, you could still get acceptable and perfect shots at times. But during the night times, you just have to try your luck with finding a better spot. Do bear in mind switching the rear camera to the front camera will automatically swap the camera mode back to the basic mode and it could only stay that way. Any attempts to change the mode settings will automatically swap the camera back to the rear cameras.

Pictures taken with the portrait mode are somewhat decent. You could adjust the bokeh level as you please of course but sometimes the camera has trouble focusing on the objects. There were times when I have to adjust my standing distance in order to allow the phone to focus on the desired object. But with enough patience, it could still turn out great with the photos.

On a side note, you could boot up the phone’s camera by manually selecting the camera app or just by pressing the shutter button located on the right side of the phone for a quick boot-up (unless disabled). Secondly, every time you boot up the camera pro, or even the cinema pro and video pro apps, a notice will pop up stating that placing your hands directly on the smartphone will result in burns if the device’s temperature becomes high, prompting that the phone will tend to get overheated if there’s prolonged usage. This is of course, due to the fact that the phone’s chipset which is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Which is, notorious for its overheating issue. Thus continuous usage of the phone, not just the camera but other apps that drains the battery will result in faster overheating. However, there’s no need to be concerned as I have yet to encounter any overheating issue to a point that it burns upon touching while photo shooting or video graphing.

DISPLAY & AUDIO

Now moving on to audio and display, something that Sony is also well-known for. When it comes to audio, the Xperia 5 IV doesn’t display any form of stuttering, staying faithful to the brand’s name. While it’s not flagship quality, the stereo speakers that came with the phone are adequate enough to produce crisp sounds. Also, as mentioned above, the phone comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack, which makes the phone some form of a novelty as a lot of smartphones nowadays have outright removed the headphone jack.

Also, the Xperia 5 IV also comes with Music Pro features. If you’re involved in the journalism, or music industry, this might come in handy as it comes with its own editing tools and it also allows in-app studio tuning. Pretty neat huh?

In terms of display, let’s talk about the size of the screen first. The entire screen is 86.9 cm² and is made out of OLED. Consisting of 1B colors, a refresh rate of 120Hz, as well as HDR BT.2020 as part of its specification, not to mention the body-to-screen ratio is at around 83%, this made the Xperia 5 IV one of the better phones to browse and watch videos. Albeit a tat bit elongated but hey, it has no trouble running at 1080p though.

PERFORMANCE & UI

As mentioned once again, the Sony Xperia 5 IV is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. with Octa-core (1×3.00 GHz Cortex-X2 & 3×2.50 GHz Cortex-A710 & 4×1.80 GHz Cortex-A510) as CPU and running on Adreno 730 GPU. Great chipset but overheating is inevitable, especially with an application that requires a lot of resources to run. That being said the phone is not really meant for gaming, it doesn’t mean it cannot use for gaming but it’s just not suitable for gaming. For example, even while I was waiting for Genshin Impact to download its resources the title screen is already enough to make the phone heat up. And I haven’t even started to play yet. But still, the graphics on the Xperia 5 IV is still adequate enough to run Genshin on High graphic settings, however, this will mean that the phone will overheat even faster. Even with the game enhancer on, switching it to battery-saving mode doesn’t do much with the overheating. So at the end of the day, is the Xperia 5 IV suitable for gaming? Yes. But is it suggestible to game on the phone? Not so. Unless you’re playing games that require lower resources then it’s perfectly fine.

Storage wise the Xperia 5 IV comes with only 256GB 8GB RAM variant, at least in Malaysia. Additional memory is allowed by inserting a microSD card but this will sacrifice the ability to use two SIM cards as the MicroSD slot is sharing the same spot as the second SIM card slot.

The UI is powered by Android 12 but upgradable to Android 13. As a matter of fact, Sony will constantly upgrade the phone’s software from time to time so the phone could keep you running for quite a long time. Aside from that the phone also came preinstalled with the PS app, acting as a companion app to your PS4 or PS5 and allowing you to keep track of the games you played, the trophy you earn, and so on. Other than that, there’s nothing much new about Experia 5 IV.

BATTERY LIFE

Having a 5,000 mAh of battery capacity may not sound impressive for a high-end phone, but it could still get you through your day-to-day tasks with no issue provided you don’t run any resource-intensive applications. Other than that, music podcasts, social media browsing, and text messaging should do you fine for the entire day. Ironically, using the camera pro and video pro alone would have the battery drop faster, but it’s understandable since the device focus on its power on the camera performance in order to produce high-quality pictures and videos. Having the phone drained its battery all the way down to 4% would only need 30 mins of charging to get the battery level back up to 50%. So a maximum of an hour or so would get the phone back to 100% with no issues. On a side note, whenever the charger is unplugged from the phone, Sony software will tend to display a battery usage chart regardless of when it was actually last charged. This may sound redundant over time but not to a point that is intolerable. The phone also supports both wired and wireless charging though.

BENCHMARK

In case you’re wondering what’s the results of the phone’s benchmark, you could refer to the chart we attached below for reference.

SPECIFICATION

VERDICT

Personally speaking, the Sony Xperia 5 IV is a fantastic device if it’s not because of its steep price tag. Of course, one could say that there are other better flagship phones that could easily top the Xperia 5 IV in terms of features and functions. But you have to appreciate the consistency of Sony in perfecting the photography features. But again, this is just my opinion. If you plan on getting the phone for day-to-day usage, then perfect no, I would not recommend this phone on your list of selections. But if you’re a full-time content creator that would like affordable alternatives rather than buying a full studio set of equipment, then do keep a look out for this niche little gem.

Currently, the Sony Xperia 5 IV is available for sale on the Sony official site with a price tag of RM4,499.00 as well as other authorized dealers such as Shopee and Lazada. So do check it out if you’re interested.

TL;DR

PRO:

1. Excellent for content creators, the media industry, and journalism.
2. Elonged screen for excellent viewing pleasure
3. Adequate battery consumption
4. Excellent cameras
5. Aesthetically good to look at, and nice to hold

CON:

1. Steep price
2. Camera performance is limited to the photography skill of the user
3. Although good to look at, it’s hard to deny the form factor felt like it came straight out of 2017