If you long for the days of 2011, when 5.3-inch smartphones were enormous outliers rather than the norm, Sony has some news that may interest you: its flagship Xperia Z5 smartphone and its smaller-but-still-high-end sibling the Xperia Z5 Compact are coming to the US on February 7, 2016.
Sony smartphones are the only non-Nexus Android phones I’d even remotely consider buying. Even though they, too, suffer from the ridiculous update situation, they are at least trying to sell a nice, compact, high-end Android phone. In fact, I find it kind of remarkable that some version of the Z5 Compact isn’t available in a Nexus configuration.
I never understood why manufacturers make the “mini” versions low-end. There seems to be a HUGE market for high-end phones that are smaller than the 5+ inch monsters.
That said, I love my LG G3 “monster” to death, and it’s the first android phone I ever used that I didn’t feel the need to put CyanogenMod or similar onto.
Because mini phone’s don’t have enough battery power to be a better phone.
Hell big phone’s don’t either but who know’s maybe one day they will stop bewing obsessed with making phone too small (thickness wise I mean, though I like big phones in the other way, about 6 inch sounds right to me!)
It’s just not true that the battery would have to be significantly smaller than in bigger phones. You can easily fit a 2200-2500 mAh battery in a smaller phone. We’re not talking tiny phones here, as in the pre-smartphone era.
I get 2 days usage out of the 3000 mAh in my G3, and it has a big quad-HD display slurping up that power. A smaller phone with a smaller display and significantly fewer pixels should have no problem getting similar usage times.
Edited 2016-01-15 21:08 UTC
is not that they can’t put better batteries, they don’t want to. you can find on the market 5″ phones with a 4000 mAh battery, 5.5″ phones with a 5000 mAh battery and so on.
It’s nice to see some progress but it’s been months since the Z5 and Z5C came out. They are also removing features(fingerprint sensor) and really only compatible with one carrier. My desire for small phones is huge, but I’m not switching to AT&T for this phone, I’ll continue to stick with my 1st gen Moto X. Sony should follow Motorola’s lead and sell unlocked phones that work on all US carriers. They’d have my sale.
That’s a shame about the fingerprint sensor. I have the Nexus 5X, the smallest Android phone I could find that’s worth a damn, and I don’t like the size. I really miss my 2013 Moto X – not because I was in love with the phone, but because it fit a lot easier in small pockets.
Apparently, you can get an international one via Expansys.
http://www.expansys-usa.com//s.aspx?search=xperia%20z5
Based on the Verge’s listing for the price, it may even be cheaper – Verge is saying the Z5C and Z5 will be on sale for $499 and $599, respectively, while Expansys sells them for $449 and $539 – and they include the fingerprint sensor, too.
Edited 2016-01-15 23:04 UTC
I agree that Sony should have a bash now at creating a Nexus device. I had the original Xperia Z, followed by the Z Ultra and find that although they do have their own launcher and some preinstalled apps there is nothing offensive. Great battery life and excellent build quality. Decent camera normally too! And if you want a pure nexus experience its only a bootloader unlock away. I never found I needed to do that however. So come on Google, let Sony do the 2016 nexus!
Sony Nexus 4P. Premium 4.7″ phone. I’d buy.
They really don’t suffer from the update issues, though.
Okay, they do if you get yours through a carrier and they decide to lock the bootloader.
However, retail phones allow the boot loader to be unlocked (Sony provides instructions for each model).
They update all their models in a fairly reasonable time frame as long as the hardware reasonably supports it, using public betas in certain regions to determine how well a phone takes to the newer Android (For example, the original Z was included in the Marshmallow test, but it they decided that Marshmallow didn’t run well enough on it).
If you don’t feel like waiting for the official Sony release, or want to make your own custom ROM, they maintain a repo on GitHub with the current AOSP, including a couple of tools for extracting the proprietary bits needed for the camera (and something else – I can’t remember). They just released experimental AOSP support for the camera, too, making it easier to create and distribute customized ROMS.
They actually have a developers site meant for developing custom ROMs for the Xperia phones.
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/open-source/open-dev…
All this means the update situation with Xperia phones is a far cry from it is with the overwhelming majority of the rest of Android.
Most underrated and completely ignored manufacturer of some of the best Android phones out there.
Also one of the few manufacturers happily sending me email about how to access my Z3 Compact’s UART ports.