Sony Xperia Z5 Premium

“Sony's designated Premium smartphone turns out to be a bigger twin of the Xperia Z5 with the same technological basis apart from the screen.”

“Sony is ahead of the competition for the first time in years with the new Xperia Z5 Premium. It beat everyone to the 4K bandwagon and made the breakthrough first. Will that benefit sales? Most probably, it will. History has proven that the market favors technology pioneers, so Sony should probably do just fine with the Z5 Premium. It's a beautiful phablet, powerful, with some great running software to an extent that it may not even need a 4K screen as a headline feature. The truth is that 4K doesn't really bring any substantial advantages on a smartphone screen - not today at least. But thanks to the Xperia Z5 Premium, the future is one step closer now.”

“You're looking at about $700 to get your hands on this phone, and that's not even for a North American version with proper warranty support. I'm not sure what Sony's plans are for the Z5 series going forward, but it would be nice to at least have the option of buying one here. As for whether or not you should, that's a more complicated question.From a technical standpoint, having a 4K display in a phone is really neat. Practically, it really doesn't matter. I'm not even talking about the questionable benefit of having that many pixels, there's just very little use for 4K on this phone. Almost everything is rendered at 1080p, so no streaming video services will even output video at higher resolution than that. Sony didn't include any 4K video content, which is the only time the screen runs in native 4K. It's nice that you can watch the 4K videos you capture in native resolution... I guess. The screen is mostly marketing hype.The nice thing about the display shenanigans is that the Xperia Z5 Premium gets great battery life. I have no problem hitting two full days and you can probably hit seven hours of screen time in a single day if you use it heavily. Note, if you're actually watching 4K video, that'll drop precipitously.”

“The Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is worthy of its name. It does everything you'd want of a top-end phone, but I'm not calling it a triumph. Though crowbarring 4K resolution into a screen sounds impressive on paper, in reality it doesn't really make any difference except to the price. This phone costs significantly more than the Galaxy S6 Edge, yet it's the Edge that has really pushed the boat out with a stunning new design. Sony's design looks dated and repetitive in comparison.Both the Edge and LG's G4 also pack higher-than-HD displays which are beautifully crisp with more pixels than your eyes will probably appreciate. You'll get great cameras and loads of power on both those phones too. What separates the Z5 Premium from its competition, then, is its waterproof capabilities, which is certainly worth having -- particularly if you're clumsy around drinks, baths and other bodies of water -- but I don't think that feature alone justifies such a big price increase.If you're after a high performance Android phone that you can safely use in the rain and you can stomach the price, it's worth checking out in the flesh. Personally though, there's no reason I would choose to spend more money on the Z5 Premium when I can get a gorgeous, powerful phone with a stunning screen and awesome camera in the form of the Galaxy S6 Edge -- with enough left over for a posh dinner.”