Sony Xperia 5 IV - 6.1 Inch 21:9 Wide HDR OLED- 120Hz Refresh rate- Compact- Triple lens (with ZEISS T* coating)- 3.5 mm audio jack- Android 12- SIM free- 8GB RAM- 128GB Storage- Dual SIM hybrid-Black

I've used Xperia devices since the Z5 Compact, most recently dumping my interim Xperia 5 II waiting for this, the 5 IV, where Sony have now delivered a worthy upgrade... Other than the extortionate price. You might find this review useful with my comparing old to latest.In short, if you have the III series, it is not worth upgrading, even if the price falls. The only real "benefit" is wireless charging, but that remains more of a fad than something game changing. Also note a charging pad still requires a cable connection, so you are simply swapping cables around for no real benefit.If you hate a 'notch', want a 3.5mm jack and expandable memory, exceptional battery life, find Samsung boring, Apple isn't an option, and money-is-no-option, then get the 5 IV. You won't be disappointed, but try not to think about how much you paid for it...***GOOD THINGS***DESIGN & FUNCTION▪️ Build quality is excellent, but then so it should be at this price.▪️ Phone has an attractive, if understated, design. The rear frosted glass harks back to the Z5, and while a case is recommended, it far less slippery than the 5 II, so is practical even if you decide to keep your 5 IV "naked".▪️ Haptic feedback, which I usually switch off, is so well done I have left it on. The fingerprint scanner gives a satisfying rumble and it genuinely enhances interacting with the phone.▪️ The atrocious Sony fingerprint scanner has finally been improved. A known issue, with my 5 II, I would very often have to use the keypad as the fingerprint scanner would not recognise my thumb print. With the 5 IV, that happens far less often, I can think of only a few occasions where it has not recognised my thumb print.▪️ Button placement, including the camera shutter, are ergonomically spaced out and positioned.BATTERY▪️ Battery life is excellent. Connected to wi-fi at home, with regular use of social apps and the web, 120Hz refresh on, I get around 52-60 hours. That compares to the 5 II, which also had excellent battery life, which would last about 36 hours under identical conditions. Using mobile data, and heavy use, expect 36-40 hours - which is class-leading.SCREEN▪️ OLED screen is much brighter than any recent Xperia model. Colours pop and it is beautiful.▪️ Switch on the 120Hz refresh where it is off by default. It makes minimal impact to battery life. I do feel the 5 II was a bit smoother, but then this might be a software issue that will soon be updated.CAMERA▪️ Camera quality is excellent. I recently took some macro shots and they were comparable to my RX 100, which is a class-leading compact camera and has a CMOS sensor!▪️ Compared to the best cameraphone on the market in the Samsung S22 Ultra, what the 5 IV lacks in zoom, it makes up for in natural representation of every scene, and far less warping in the corners of each shot - a compromise Sony engineers probably made over zoom.SOFTWARE▪️ Minimal bloatware and the almost stock Sony implementation of Android 12 is very nice.▪️ Though I am used to Sony Pro apps, you should spend an afternoon getting to grips with them, especially Photo Pro, so that you can make best use of the excellent camera equipment you're paying for.▪️ Also nice to see Sony have dropped the "basic" camera app and rolled it into the Photo Pro app as the "Basic" setting. This makes it more convenient when you just want a quick shot of something.***BAD THINGS**PRICE▪️ While the phone is excellent, it's a struggle to justify almost £1000 for a phone that has a flagship price, but is not a flagship device, nor is it even particularly innovative.▪️ The bundled Linkbud S are amusingly marked as a "free gift", where they are so clearly part of the price. Early adopters pay a premium, and this is Sony's marketing department's way of trying to sugar coat it.▪️ I would recommend not opening and selling the mediocre Linkbud S, where you should be able to get at least £100 for them. Take that from the price and then the 5 IV looks a lot more reasonable. I sold mine at a profit of £100, meaning the actual phone cost was a more reasonable £850.▪️ Or wait, because by Q1 23 the Linkbuds will disappear, but then so too will the £950 price tag, which will drop to £850.MEMORY▪️ At £950, it is almost insulting that Sony considers 128GB of internal storage acceptable. While there is an expandable memory card slot, this too is why the phone is bad value.CAMERA▪️ The lack of zoom is shamelessly planned obsolescence, where you should expect the next iteration of this device to have a significantly redesigned camera.▪️ Sony purposefully handicapped the zoom to justify upgrading again next year, but that is not to say the camera is not good, because it is. It just has limited application for some scenes, where longer zoom reduces the need to carry around a dedicated camera.WIRELESS CHARGING▪️ Not a criticism of the 5 IV, but in general, I thought wireless charging would be really useful. Instead, I found it to be a fad where the technology is too new. The only useful situation is if you have wireless charging in a car.▪️ There is no official charging pad, so you are left with aftermarket charging pads, which are slow to charge and require precise alignment, made worse if you have a case over your phone. It can also make the phone very hot, which I doubt is a good thing for long-term battery health.▪️ The biggest issue is you cannot use your phone while it is charging, because that means removing it from the pad. I found this frustrating enough that I returned my wireless charger and will stick with the official wired fast charger I purchased.▪️ Finally, the whole point of wireless charging is that there are no cables. However, there is a cable connecting your charging pad to a power source, so you are simply playing musical-chairs with a power cable. Until wireless charging is within a certain range of the phone, I can't see the benefit of it.DESIGN & CASES▪️ While I really like the design over the 5 II, I actually don't like it as much when using a case: the squared edges make even the thinnest case more prominent.▪️ I noticed this most with my 5 II, which had curved edges. That seemed to give an illusion of a smaller, more elegant footprint. The exact same case (material and thickness) and my 5 IV seems thicker and more of a cumbersome block.▪️ The device has only just been released so case options are almost non-existent. This might be enough reason to hold off ordering for a month or two.▪️ I initially purchased a cheap and slimy feeling silicone case, before waiting for my 5 IV 'bullet-proof' aramid case to arrive from China where I could find only one seller selling it. I must be one of the first to receive an aramid case for the 5 IV - the very same one I had on my 5 II - and while it is 0.3mm thick, it appears thicker because of the squared edge design.

Waited a week before writing a review. Firstly it came from the Amazon warehouse 2nd hand but marked condition excellent on the ad. It is in excellent condition and arrived as described. Battery life is great and doesn't run down quickly at all. As a used item it's great.For a phone review I have to say I love this phone. I would say if you are a point and shoot user of a camera then you should look elsewhere but if you like to play with camera settings this phone is unbelievable good. Even in the basic camera point and shoot mode you can quickly add warmth or cool range or open the aperture or close it to bring more light in or not. You can also in the basic mode allow the sensor to read of a white colour reading or fed colour reading. However in manual mode you can do all this and more. You can also use the video in manual mode. It's just incredible product. Perhaps more of a camera that is a phone rather than a phone that has a camera . The hardware feels amazing and I am really enjoying having such versatility in a camera.

So far so good. All benefits that I thought would be good, are excellent. But this report should be written in a few weeks time, as only had for three days.

This is a really well designed phone, very sleek and lightweight. Easy to use and has great features.Camera: excellent camera with many settings, great for film making/vlogging.Battery Life: moderate battery life- decharges quickly and will not last a full day even if it’s not doing much.This phone overheats massively and feels so hot to touch. It even has a overheating warning because it heats up so much.I think it is good for videos but it doesn’t really compare to the iPhone in terms of performance and battery life.For the price I am disappointed.

Battery life is a big plus!

I used to own mostly Samsung's for many many years but recently needed to upgrade and boy, getting this Xperia was a mistake (got it mostly because unlike flagship Samsungs it still has a headphone jack and I absolutely despise cordless earphones and find them super uncomfortable, so my choices were limited).It's supposedly a flagship, almost top of the line phone, with top hardware. In actual day to day life, it behaves more like a mid-range phone from a few years ago. Constantly freezes, crashes, restarts, problems with connecting to WiFi, especially when going in/out of range (no, none of my other devices have the issue), absolutely not what you'd expect from a phone costing almost a grand.On the plus side, battery life is good, screen is nice, pictures are okay - but it is really annoying when it crashes always in the worst possible moment. I really hope most of that is software glitches and will get fixes with subsequent updates - but so far, I am not impressed and I'm just thankful I don't need to use it too much.Also, one note which wasn't 100% clear to me. It says dual SIM and it has microSD slot. Unlike most other dual SIM phones where you can use the slot for microSD card OR as a second SIM slot, this only takes microSD card. The only way to have it in dual SIM mode is by using eSIM.EDIT: 18months in: good news is that the continuous crashing and restarting has indeed been fixed over time and I stopped hating this phone. Bad news is that as of a few weeks ago, the fingerprint sensor started to act out and every time the phone gets even a tiniest bit warm (not: hot, literally, barely perceptibly warmer than completely cool) the hardware disconnects. As we're entering a warmer period, this basically means that taking it outside means no fingerprint unlocking. Since it doesn't have iris scanner that's not an option either. After getting it completely cold and restarting sometimes it kicks in again, sometimes doesn't until 5 restarts later. Internet seems to suggest this is a common issue with this line of phones. This is seriously impacting my comfort of use of the phone as a lot of what I do on the phone is stuff in apps that require frequent logins/fingerprint checks. I'm sick and tired of typing my super-long password into password manager.Going back to Samsung, and never again a Sony.