Today Sony is following up on one of the new form factors it introduced in the Xperia 5 last year. The new Xperia 1 II (pronounced Mark 2) follows up on the smaller flagship sibling device and retains its form-not only a factor, but also a significant improvement in its design, as well as more. Maintains near-perfect functional parity with the large Xperia 1 II.

The new mobile phones are also trying to differentiate themselves from other Sony products. The company doesn’t look like a gaming phone externally, but it seems to focus on the more game-centric usability of the device. With the new internal heat dissipation system, 120Hz refresh rate OLED and 240Hz sample rate touch input, the Xperia 5 II exceeds its weight when it comes to fluidity.

Sony has achieved all this while maintaining the form factor and weight of the Xperia 5. Packed with a new 4000mAh battery with improved internal engineering. This is Sony’s package, which seems to be the most competitive in a few years. Let’s see the details:

At the heart of the phone is the Snapdragon 865 SoC, which allows the device to perform well. While the SoC is fairly conservative in terms of its power consumption, the Xperia 1 II had very little throttle under persistent workloads such as games. To alleviate this, Sony has developed an improved heat dissipation system inside the phone. This is largely due to the new large graphite pad that allows heat to be transferred from the SoC to the larger footprint of the screen panel. This helps the device achieve near-indefinite sustained performance under normal circumstances.

In terms of memory, it has 8 GB of DRAM and 128 GB and 256 GB of storage capacity, which can be expanded with a microSD card.

In terms of design, the Xperia 5 II gets the cue from the Xperia 1 II, and the front and back designs are almost the same. On the front, this means it’s not a more modern notch or hole punch camera, it still has two bezels, one at the top and one at the bottom, but this is a surprisingly good two and much more than Sony does. It has the advantage of claiming to be a well-balanced stereo front speaker. It can also be found on other competitors’ smartphones.

One change in phone ergonomics is the fact that the Xperia 5 II has a rounded side frame design rather than a more rectangular and box-shaped design than that of the 1 II. In this sense, the phone seems more similar to the Xperia 1, and frankly, it’s positive because I think it offers a much better feel and ergonomics than the 1 II.

This is still a fairly small phone by today’s standard (and today’s standard is a big phone!). It’s 68mm wide, narrower than the smallest Galaxy S20, and weighs just 163 grams. By redesigning the interior of the phone, turning the motherboard and using a multi-stack design, Sony was able to simultaneously increase battery capacity from the original Xperia 5 to the new 4000mAh unit. The battery compartment also allows for more space inside the phone, maximizing the space used by the frame.

The display on the Xperia 5 II is completely new to Sony. This is an OLED screen with a resolution of 2540 x 1080, but this time it introduces a refresh rate of 120Hz and also has a touch input sample rate of 240Hz. This is not only the Xperia 5 but also a big jump from this year’s Xperia 1 II. I wasn’t a fan of Sony’s choice to chase 4K displays with the Xperia 1 lineup. Frankly, a complete excess costs a lot of battery life. A 120Hz refresh rate on an FHD + such as the Xperia 5 II is a much better choice for the user experience. The resolution shouldn’t be too bad on this 6.1-inch display. PPI is not yet because it is much smaller than today’s standard. Quite expensive.

The design of the rear camera is very similar to the design of the Xperia 1 II. In fact, this is basically the same camera setting for the module.

With a 1.8 µm pixel 12MP 1 / 1.76 inch sensor and an f / 1.7 optical system with OIS, the main 24mm equivalent module acts as a good primary camera. It adds a 70mm equivalent 3x optical zoom 12MP 1.0µm f / 2.4 module, OIS acting as a telephoto camera, and a 16mm equivalent 12MP 1.4µm f / 2.2 module as an ultra-wide-angle unit.

What’s missing in the Xperia 5 II is the time-of-flight depth sensor that exists in the larger siblings. In the case of photos, there isn’t much loss.

Sony’s camera experience is not a hardware experience, but their approach to software processing. The company takes a more hands-on approach to photography, such as digital cameras and mirrorless systems. Smartphone space isn’t always successful because it requires more computational photos to counteract the drawbacks of the camera’s small sensor. phone. In that respect, the Xperia 5 II looks great on paper, but don’t expect as great a daily experience as the iPhone or Galaxy.

The mobile phone is only 8.0mm thick and narrow, making it very easy to use.

Sony has revived the 3.5mm headphone jack this year and claims that the Xperia 5 II has improved audio quality by improving crosstalk and audio signal paths. It’s great to admit that the removal of this port was a mistake and allow companies to undo their past choices. Since no one else has this feature, the Xperia 5 II offers a very different advantage over its competitors.

With IP68 water resistance, the Xperia 5 II appears to have almost all the feature checkboxes for smartphones in 2020. This is very unusual and very unexpected from Sony.

As an overall package, this phone looks incredibly competitive. And I couldn’t say the old Sony phone.

The only real warning of the device is its price: $ 949 or € 899, which is still a bit more expensive than other flagship products in 2020, especially this is the second half of the generation cycle. In Europe, the Xperia 5 II will be available in October, but in the US it will be late again and will only be available from December 4th.^Th – This is very late, at which point it would be better to wait for a refreshment in the spring of 2021 from the competition.

Still, it’s been a while since I’ve been so excited about Sony phones, and it’s certainly positive for the company’s new path in the mobile space.

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