Sony Xperia 5 is a longphone that maybe makes sense

No, despite weak sales, Sony still hasn’t given up on making smartphones. The company brought a new model to the IFA show in Berlin, and this time, it just might be onto something.

Even though it skips four numbers, the Xperia 5 is not really a direct successor of last year’s Xperia 1. It also has a long form factor, with a 21:9 ratio screen, but it measures 6.1 inches, making it a fair deal smaller than the 6.5-inch Xperia 1. 

And if there’s one thing I’ve been hearing from people who aren’t really into phones and just want a decent smartphone they can use, is that they prefer smaller phones to the monsters that are currently in fashion. At 6.1 inches, the Xperia 5 is not tiny, but it is a lot easier to handle than most phones these days. 

Specs-wise, the Xperia 5 is pretty good. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, just like most flagships these days, as well as 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage memory (expandable via microSDXC cards up to 512GB of capacity). 

The screen is OLED, and has a 2,520×1,080 pixel resolution. The triple rear camera, which includes a main sensor, an ultra-wide sensor and a 2x zoom sensor, comes with an elegant 12/12/12-megapixel resolution. On the front, there’s an 8-megapixel selfie camera. The phone has a 3,140mAh battery, is water resistant up to IP65/68 specifications (it’s unclear what, exactly, that means, so we’ll consider it IP65 until we find out more), and comes with Android 9 Pie. 

It’s unlikely that the Xperia 5 will restore Sony to its former glory (if there ever were such a thing). But smaller phones aren’t easy to find in today’s market, so it might hit the right spot for a lot of users. 

Pre-orders for the Xperia 5 start next week, and the phone will be available in Europe next month.