Sony Xperia 5 III

Build Quality

The Sony Xperia 5 III, launched on October 8, 2021, presents a compact form factor with dimensions of 157mm in height, 68mm in width, and 8.2mm in depth, weighing 168g. Its design incorporates a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and dual nano-SIM card slots. The device feels well-constructed, and the use of Corning Gorilla Glass 6 for screen protection adds to its durability. Available colors include Black, Green, and Pink.

Screen Quality

The Xperia 5 III features a 6.1-inch OLED display with a resolution of 1080 x 2520 pixels, yielding a pixel density of 449 ppi and a 21:9 aspect ratio. The screen boasts a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth visuals and supports 1B colors, ensuring vibrant and accurate color reproduction. This display also includes HDR, DCI-P3, and sRGB standards, covering 100% of the NTSC color gamut, and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. The screen is free from any notches, providing an immersive viewing experience.

Camera Performance

The phone's camera system includes a triple rear setup, all utilizing Sony Exmor RS CMOS BSI sensors. The primary 12MP camera features a 1.7 aperture and 1.80 µm pixel size. There's a 12MP wide-angle lens with a 2.3 aperture, and a 12MP telephoto lens with a variable aperture of F2.3 (70mm) and F2.8 (105mm). The camera system includes ZEISS quality calibrated lenses with ZEISS coating. Key features include hybrid zoom up to 12.5x, optical image stabilization (OIS), electronic image stabilization (EIS) with Intelligent Active Mode (5-axis), 4K HDR video recording up to 120fps, and a suite of functionalities like autofocus, touch focus, continuous shooting, geotagging, panorama, HDR, and RAW capture. The front-facing selfie camera is an 8MP sensor with a 2.0 aperture and 1.12 µm pixels.

Software Experience

The Xperia 5 III ships with Android 11, with updates available up to Android 13. The user interface is close to stock Android, and the device includes a variety of sensor types such as accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, color spectrum, and a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.

Battery Performance

The device is powered by a 4500 mAh Li-Polymer battery. It supports 30W fast charging, features bypass charging, and is non-removable. However, wireless charging is not supported.

Connectivity

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) with dual band, Wi-Fi Direct, and Wi-Fi Display. Bluetooth 5.2 with LE Low Energy and features such as A2DP, AVRCP, and aptX are also included. It provides a comprehensive set of GPS features, supporting GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, QZSS, and Galileo. The device supports Dual SIM Dual Standby (Nano SIM + Nano SIM). Network band support is extensive, including 5G bands (n1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n20, n28b, n28a, n38, n40, n41, n77, n78), 4G LTE, 3G, and 2G bands. USB Type-C 3.1 with OTG and video output capability is also present.

Hardware and Performance

The phone utilizes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G (5nm) chipset with an Octa-core CPU (1x2.84 GHz Cortex-X1, 3x2.42 GHz Cortex-A78, and 4x1.80 GHz Cortex-A55) and Adreno 660 GPU. It comes with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The device achieves an impressive AnTuTu score of 880000 (v10). It has no SD card slot, but supports audio features such as Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res Audio, and stereo speakers. There is no notification LED.

Value for Money

The Sony Xperia 5 III is positioned in the medium price range. Prices vary based on RAM/ROM configurations and region, with 8GB/256GB versions having prices such as $454.57, $550.00 and $327.72. It provides a high-quality display, capable camera performance and flagship-level chipset, although storage expansion is not an option.