Like I said, it’s Android week in the technology world right now, but I’m not going to write a new post for every Android phone being thrown onto the world stage to be forgotten in a week. Instead, I’m going to focus on a few that I think are particularly interesting, and I’m going to start with Sony. The company has unveiled its Xperia Z5 line and it has to be said – the Z5 Compact, the Z5, and the Z5 Premium are absolutely gorgeous.
In terms of essential specs, the three Z5s are pretty similar. (The main differences are size, materials, and screen resolution.) There’s the same Snapdragon 810 64-bit processor powering each of them, with both the Z5 and Z5 Premium sporting 3GB of RAM while the smaller Compact gets 2GB. All three devices are dust-tight and waterproof with capless micro USB ports, offer up to 32GB of internal memory (expandable up to 200GB with microSD cards), and have enough battery to last for up two days’ use, says Sony.
The Z5 Premium is a monster of a phone – it has a 4K display, which equates to 3840×2160 pixels and a ppi of 806. Pure insanity. Sony claims all three phones – even the Premium – get 2 days of use on a single charge. They look fantastic, but for some reason, nobody seems to buy Sony smartphones.
Moving on, Lenovo unveiled a bunch of smartphones, and I think one of them might be of interest to many of you.
The Vibe P1 and P1m slot in underneath the S1 just slightly, and they’re all about simple features and battery life. The Vibe P1 is an all-metal affair, with a 5.5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 13MP rear camera and an absolutely huge 5000 mAh battery. That battery enables reverse charging of other devices over USB, and sports quick charging capabilities.
That’s a positively huge battery, and should enable some major battery life.
Lastly, there’s a new company – lead by former Apple CEO John Sculley – who also unveiled two brand new Android smartphones. The company’s called Obi, and their first two phones are the SF1 and SJ1.5. I’ll be honest here – I want these phones’ babies. They look fun, quirky, and different, and represent a welcome change from the boring, metallic, cold, hospital-esque stuff we get from other phone makers. They got decent specs, too.
That being said, it’s a startup – big name co-founder or no – and there’s no information on availability and pricing yet, so for all I know, they’re never going to be heard from again. Also, as with all the phones mentioned in this post, they’re not running stock Android, so don’t expect timely updates.
Still, these are some interesting phones.
Nice looking and distinct from Lumia with the flat top, but otherwise very Lumia inspired and not that new and different.
I was going to say, it looks eerily like they ripped off the N9 design, which of course the Lumias followed.
I kinda like this one too:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nextbit/robin-the-smarter-smart…
Slightly too expensive for me but I like the design, also a bit scary to put 350 dollars into a device that has no guarantees of being build
Edited 2015-09-03 20:53 UTC
i just bought a new battery for my ancient nokia-brick
the old one dropped below 1 week between recharges…
Just have to wipe the OS and install Cyanogenmod or something to remove all the malware eating it up.
I think we have a new internet-comments-law: Whenever the topic is Lenovo, malware/spyware will be mentioned.
Good ^_^
Edited 2015-09-03 23:53 UTC
I might be inclined to pick up a Z5, assuming they actually sell it in the US such that I can walk into a store and put my hands on one. It’d be a shame if it doesn’t come here, considering it’s the only Android flagship this year that has great battery life AND isn’t a whale.
I’m still looking for a replacement for my 2013 Moto X, and coming up empty so far. The new Nexus 5 might do it, assuming the battery doesn’t suck ass.
I would have chosen an Xperia over my current HTC, had it been available in the US.
Sony seems to either have a great product that they won’t sell, or a horrible product they foist on everyone.
I think that trying to find something unique and different in the technology world is great! That’s why I love to follow this site and read the posts from Thom and all the great comments from the community. The Obi looks brilliant! At least from the marketing 3D-renders. I’m not sure I will change from Apple iPhone any time soon I will every day try to reconsider.
Keep up the good work, what about a rework of the site so it will render well on phones though? I gladly help you out. 
“They look fantastic, but for some reason, nobody seems to buy Sony smartphones.”
Because if they will put trojans in your Music CD, just think what they have lurking in your phone.
No thanks.
Isn’t Sony Music separate from Sony’s smartphone division?
FWIW, they are now using Stock Android: no ugly, half baked, badly maintained proprietary reworks of the GUI anymore. A great way for Sony to both save money AND improve user experience! Will Samsung and the chinese newcomers ever learn?
From all I have heard, read and understood Sony is probably the most open Android manufacturer there is. I don’t know if the same goes for their pc-division, or if that division actually still/again exists.
Giving Sony slack for this might satisfy you, but it isn’t accurate anymore. There are new targets for this now with varying degrees of accurateness (Lenovo, Microsoft and of course Google and FaceBook) while others seem to stay out of this spotlight (again, some deservedly and others undeservedly)
Is there an overview of “reasons to hate/bash companies” where you can filter/sort on “privacy” somewhere? If there isn’t yet, everyone is free to steal that idea
Richard Stallman has a nice list of companies infringing on privacy at his website. Right now it’s limited to: What’s bad about: Amazon | Apple | Facebook | Skype | Google | Uber | Ebooks | Amtrak | Eventbrite | Airbnb | Netflix | Twitter | Spotify
The wife bought recently a Lenovo P70, is a midrange phone with a 4000 mAh battery and I can say the battery life is decent, getting close my old dumbphone. With something like P1m I will finally move myself to using a smaprtphone.
The first Continuum phone got announced:
http://www.windowscentral.com/meet-newly-announced-jade-primo-acers…
Basically it allows you to turn your phone into a pc (ARM-cpu, so apps only). Not good enough for me, but might be the first smartphone for my parents and a replacement for their laptop as well (PATA disk inside:( )
According to Ars Technica, the new Sony handsets seem to incorporate the fingerprint scanners within in the sleep/wake button. Not sure how effective it’ll be reading your print from that thin strip, but I do like the idea.
The Obi definitely looks like it had some former Nokia designers working on it. Nice device.
Maybe it’s just me and my lifestyle, but I can’t imagine the elevated screen on the SF1 being very friendly to real world usage… it seems like it would snag on everything and be more likely to be damaged in a fall. Not to mention the crazy scratch potential. The SJ1.5 looks much more robust but has weaker specs. Too bad, really.
A PepsiPhone!
Quite frankly I’ve kept quite a bit of my home electronics Sony. Only one VCR from Toshiba was ever as nice for the price. Otherwise it’s products have almost always been stylish, easy to use, and pleasant to own. I cannot imagine this isn’t the case with Z5.
Other than the PlayStation bit, what separates the Z5 from my HTC M9? They seem very similar.