Sony Xperia 5 III review

Sony Xperia 5 III Android smartphone. Announced  2021. 

 sony is back with the xperia 5 mark iii which aims to offer pretty much all of the features of the headline flagship the xperia 1 mark iii but in a more compact package could this be the compact flagship to look out for in 2021 and wilford gsm arena and let's find out in our full review looks wise sony hasn't exactly gone out on a limb with the new xperia 5. it's absolutely the same as last year's model they didn't even give it a matte finish like they did with the one mark iii to set it apart the only real telltale difference is that the xperia 5 mark iii has a larger camera bump which includes a rectangular periscope zoom lens overall 

the phone feels light and narrow in the hand and easy to wield it's pretty solid too with an aluminum frame and gorilla glass 6 protection on the back panel plus you get the ip68 rated water resistance you'd expect from a sony flagship for extra peace of mind when you're out by the pool the phone is built around a 6.1 inch oled display with sizable bezels and the same specs as last year's model it's got a tall 21 by 9 aspect ratio and a fast 120hz refresh rate the resolution is a standard 1080p here

 if you wanted to have a 4k display you'd need to look at the xperia 1. but even so the xperia 5 mark 3's display is plenty sharp at 449 ppi and content looks great here you get deep oled blacks and 10 bit color colors can have great accuracy too depending on your color settings there's hdr video support here as well however this display doesn't get quite as bright as last year's model we measured a maximum of 590 nits which is quite a bit less than some competitors and you only get that level in select whitelisted apps like google photos or web browsers as long as you have creator mode selected for the screen with the high refresh rate enabled moving elements on screen like when you're swiping or scrolling look extra smooth

 it's not exactly adaptive though sticking to 120 hertz mostly across the board except for a few isolated apps there's also support for high frame rate gaming which you can enable within settings for audio the xperia 5 mark iii has dual front-facing speakers these earned a score of good on our loudness charts just like last year's model quality is good too with clear vocals though we wish the low end pack more punch [Music] also unlike some other flagships out there the xperia 5 mark iii has a 3.5 millimeter jack for plugging in traditional headphones waking up and unlocking the phone can be done with a side mounted fingerprint reader which doubles as the power button is quick and reliable and for storage the xperia 5 mark iii can come with 128 or 256 gigs of storage on board and this is expandable via microsd if you're not using both sim slots the phone's user interface is a pretty stock android 11 with a few sony features sprinkled in overall it feels smooth and straightforward one unique feature is sidesets tapping on a bar on the edge of the screen will bring up a menu of shortcuts to various apps and features and swiping the bar will open another panel for split screen shortcuts handy for multitasking on the fly speaking of multitasking switching between apps on each side of the split screen is super easy thanks to the multi-window switch feature and there's a game enhancer its dedicated menu acts as a game hub and

 it provides settings for refresh rate performance and notification options you can also find these settings within an overlay they can access within a game and its shortcuts for screenshots and video capture can come in handy now onto the chipset which as you might have guessed is the flagship grade snapdragon 888 this provides top-tier performance both cpu and gpu-wise as well as 5g connectivity compared to other devices running on the same chipset the xperia 5 mark iii sits around the middle of the pack benchmark wise one thing we did observe though is that the phone tends to heat up quite a bit and we encountered significant thermal throttling so as far as sustain performance goes this phone falls behind some competitors the xperia 5 mark 3 has a 4 500 milliamp hour battery which is larger than last year's model and actually the same size as the xperia 1's battery overall it doesn't disappoint considering the capacity and the chipset the xperia 5 mark iii was able to earn an endurance rating of 100 hours in our battery life tests a significantly better score than the xperia 1 model charging speed is okay but nothing too fancy with the bundled 30 watt adapter we were able to charge the battery from zero to 49 percent in half an hour there's no support for wireless charging here though which the xperia 1 does have let's move on to the cameras 

the xperia 5 mark iii has three cameras on the back a 12 megapixel main cam a 12 megapixel ultra wide with autofocus and that special 12 megapixel periscope telephoto cam which offers two different optical zoom levels it's exactly the same setup as the xperia 1 mark iii except that here you're missing the tof sensor during the day images from the main cam are virtually identical in quality to those from the xperia 1 mark iii they're very good with a high level of detail and fine details look more natural than on many competitors colors are well balanced dynamic range is excellent and there's hardly any noise the ultrawide camera also does a nice job sharpness and detail are very good and noise is minimal the colors match those from the main camera too and dynamic range is excellent next the telephoto which surprised us it provided much better sharpness and contrast than what we got from the xperia 1 zoom at the 2.9 time zoom level or 70 millimeter equivalent the xperia 5 mark iii captures fine textures and edges are well defined we like the contrast the wide dynamic range and the vibrant colors too there is some visible pixelation in some fine details though zooming into 4.4 times or 105 millimeter equivalent doesn't change much in terms of quality these shots look good with plenty of fine detail and contrast and 

the sharpness is on point the xperia 5 mark iii does a decent job as far as portraits go despite not having a tof camera subject detection is very good and you get excellent detail be careful with backlit scenes though as they can become blown out the telephoto's portrait shots are not quite as sharp as the main cameras but you get a benefit in terms of perspective due to the longer lens in low light the main camera captures sharp and detailed photos thanks in part to the balanced noise reduction colors are accurate and the dynamic range is decent with shadows that are on the darker side but are arguably more true to life this way the ultrawide cam captures sharp and detailed images too with good color rendition we would say that these shadows are a bit too dark though if the light isn't too low the telephoto cam provides decent performance there's enough sharpness and detail and dynamic range is relatively good too 

but we'd prefer a brighter exposure or shadows that weren't so dark at the higher 4.4 times zoom level you need even more light to get something good but if that's the case the photos are nicely sharp with plenty of detail selfies are taken with an 8 megapixel front facing cam and these aren't bad you get enough detail for the resolution as well as pleasing colors and good dynamic range just like on the xperia 1 with the default camera app you can record video in 4k at 30fps with all three rear cameras but you can go all the way up to 120fps if you use the cinema pro app for your shooting anyway the basic app records solid 4k footage from the main camera with excellent dynamic range and balanced colors detail is pretty good though you'll get better rendition of fine textures from the competition

 the ultra wide cams 4k footage is quite competitive as far as detail goes and it also has good looking colors and respectable dynamic range just like we observed with stills the telephoto cam shoots sharper video than what we saw from the xperia 1. at 2.9 times zoom there's good detail with well-defined edges and textures colors and dynamic range are commendable too at 4.4 times zoom the strong performance continues it's quite competitive especially for a compact phone where this level of zoom is hard to come by there's electronic stabilization available on all three cameras it works great on the main cam and the ultra wide completely smoothing out walking induced shake and pans the eis doesn't work as well on the telephoto though there's noticeable shake left over so that's the xperia 5 mark iii there's a lot to like here including the compact water resistant build a 120 hertz oled screen stereo speakers good battery life a flagship chipset and probably the most versatile camera setup available for a phone this size compared to sony's headliner the xperia 1 mark iii all you really miss out on is the 4k display and wireless charging but in return you get improved battery life and better performance out of the telephoto cam at least in our case don't get me wrong this phone isn't perfect the screen isn't as bright as some competitors the charging speed is just okay and the thermal management isn't great either but if you're looking for a high-end sony or a camera-centric compact phone the xperia 5 mark iii is definitely worth recommending let's hope that sony doesn't take much longer to launch this one on the market.