Sony Xperia Z5 Premium review

    Sony's Xperia Z5 premium is the flagship phone Sony has owed us for a long time. While the standard Z5 was a fairly uninspiring reissue of the brilliant Z3, the Z5 Premium packs a bigger screen with a whopping 4K resolution, which is 3,840x2,160 pixels. It's the first phone to have a 4K resolution and it's the highest resolution I've ever seen on a phone.
But wait: Don't get too excited about seeing your photos with revolutionary levels of resolution. I personally could tell no difference in clarity on a high-resolution image between the Z5 Premium's display and that of the iPhone 6S Plus -- even though the iPhone display has half the resolution of the Sony.

We've debated before whether the step up from full HD to ultra HD displays is worth bothering with on small devices like phones, and that argument is even more pertinent having spent serious time with this phone. The major selling point of the Z5 Premium is its 4K display -- that's also how Sony tries to justify its whopping asking price -- but when you can't see any real difference, it's more of an empty marketing boast than a real benefit.
Fortunately, the Z5 Premium has other bragging rights, such as a meaty processor, a waterproof design and a 23-megapixel camera that puts it on par with any of today's top-end flagships. Yet it's all let down by a design so dull it could send a hyperactive toddler to sleep and a price tag somewhere north of ridiculous. Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge costs less and looks far more stylish. It's where I'd spend my money, over the Z5 Premium.In the UK, the Z5 Premium can be yours for an eye-watering £630, SIM-free, directly from Sony. In Australia, it'll set you back AU$1,199 but comes bundled with a digital noise-cancelling headset worth AU$79. Sony has yet to announce whether it'll be available in the US, but that UK price converts to around $960. Better start saving now.

Pin-sharp display

• 5.5-inch screen size
• 4K (3,840x2,160-pixel) resolution

The Z5 Premium's resolution equates to a massive 801 pixels per inch. That's the highest resolution I've seen on a phone, beating both iPhone 6S Plus (401ppi) and the Samsung Galaxy S6 (577ppi). On paper, that's an impressive feat, but the reality isn't quite as groundbreaking.
While you might think that cramming a truckload more pixels into a screen will make everything look sharper, I couldn't see any real difference in clarity between high-resolution images seen on the iPhone 6S Plus and the Galaxy S6 and the Z5 Premium -- even when I looked very close up at the displays to try and pick out individual pixels. The same goes for video. I showed comparison photos to several people and they agreed that the difference was so marginal, you'd never notice it was there.
More importantly, does it make your everyday tasks of emailing, calling and tweeting any crisper? No, absolutely not. Does it even give your mobile photography an extra level of clarity? Nope. Given the significant premium placed on it, I'd really want to notice it more.
While 4K might be worth having on a massive TV in your living room, cramming that many pixels into a small phone screen doesn't achieve anything except a higher selling price.
That's not to say this display is bad though. Far from it. It's unquestionably pin-sharp, and the colours are rich and vibrant, with great contrast too. I sometimes found it a little too vivid, with colours looking unnaturally oversaturated, so I tweaked the colour balance in the settings to find a more realistic look. It's bright too, once you go into the settings to disable the auto brightness. Oddly, you can't do this from the pull-down quick settings panel, and I found the auto mode to heavily restrict the brightness.

Tired design
I'm disappointed with the Z5 Premium's design. Sony has stuck rigidly to its usual Xperia look, which is beginning to look a little tired. The minimalist style, with its buttonless front, is as stark and monolithic as ever, but the squared-off sides make the phone look too blocky. The back panel is extremely glossy, and easily picks up fingerprints. I much prefer the frosted glass back of the standard Z5.

I once applauded the older Z phones for their slick, minimalist style, but Sony has done nothing to give its flagship phones a fresh look. Now, they're just boring, a worse fate. That's dangerous when its main rival Samsung has overhauled its top-end Galaxy S6 Edge with a gorgeous, curving design. Even LG is doing more to tickle the senses with its leather-clad G4 and textured, baby blue V10.

You'll find the Z5 Premium in black, mirrored silver or gold. The black model I reviewed is really very dull and is without doubt the last colour variation I would ever choose for this phone.

The phone has an IP68 level of water resistance, which technically allows it to withstand being submerged in water up to 1.5 metres (5 feet) in depth, for up to 30 minutes. Sony, however, no longer recommends fully submerging its phones in water. That's a real shame, as the ability to take underwater photos was one of the main reasons to buy one of the previous Z phones.

What this means for you is the waterproofing is there to keep the Z5 Premium safe from spilled beers, and for taking calls in the rain. The latter of which I'm pleased about, given I live in perpetually damp Britain. You'll need to firmly secure the rubberised flap over the combined nano-SIM and microSD card slot, although thankfully the 3.5mm headphone jack on top and Micro-USB port on the bottom don't need a seal to keep the water out.

Android software and Sony's skin

• Android 5.1 Lollipop
• Custom Sony skin
• Too much pre-installed bloatware

The Z5 Premium comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop as standard, and there's no word yet on when this phone might receive an update to the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow. I can't hold this against Sony too much, as it announced the Z5 Premium last September before Marshmallow was even available. Sony doesn't tend to roll out software updates to its phones quickly either, so I wouldn't recommend buying the Z5 Premium if you really crave your first taste of Marshmallow.

Sony's thick Android skin is one of the main reasons updates are so long in coming. I don't mind Sony's tweaks on standard Android though. It looks quite neat, it's easy to use, and you can easily sort apps in the apps tray by alphabetical order, most used or by name, which makes it easy to find the tool you're looking for.

Sony typically adds in quite a handful of software extras and the Z5 Premium is no exception. Beyond Sony's own calendar and email clients (the latter a baffling addition, given the phone also arrives with Google's Gmail on board), you'll find Amazon's shopping app pre-installed, as well as various PlayStation stores, Kobo's e-book app, OfficeSuite, a news app, AVG antivirus, and various other bits and bobs. It all helps the phone feel somewhat cluttered before you've even downloaded your first app. The various widgets you'll find scattered across the home screens don't help either.

Mercifully, you can uninstall many of the pre-loaded apps and I recommend you do. Before you start adding your own stuff on board, spend a bit of time clearing out anything unwanted and give yourself a blank slate to start from. You'll appreciate the reduced clutter in the long run.

Camera

• 23-megapixel rear-facing camera
• 5-megapixel front-facing camera
• 4K video recording

The camera has had a decent boost from the previous Xperia Z3, with a new 23-megapixel sensor. I took it for a spin around Britain's capital and found it can take some great shots.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium camera test

The rear camera can shoot video in 4K resolution. Footage plays back smoothly and it's generally well-exposed, although the iPhone 6S Plus achieves richer colours in video. On the front is a 5-megapixel camera which will snap some good selfies outside in the sunlight, but suffers from image noise in low-light situations.

Battery life

• 3,430mAh battery
• Non-removable

Powering a huge screen with such an astonishing resolution is no easy task for a battery and indeed it does take its toll. If you play high-action games or watch videos with the brightness set to max, you'll watch the battery ebb away pretty quickly. If you like to watch episodes of your favourite TV show on the bus in the morning, and keep powering up the screen to check email throughout the day, you'll want to give it a quick charge in the afternoon if you want any power left at the end of the night to call a cab home after the pub.

If you're more cautious, you can easily get a day of use. It holds its charge quite well in standby mode, so simply slumbering untouched in your jeans won't drain the juice. Even with moderate use -- music or podcasts on your commute, a bit of light texting, calling and emailing throughout the day and snapping a few shots of that beautiful sunset as you leave the office -- you should have some power left when you go to bed. As with all smartphones though, you'll want to give it a full charge every night.

Conclusion

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.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review

       Here's the phone you should buy right now: This one. What catapults the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge to such heights? Is it the excellent camera, the beast of a battery, the expandable storage or the seductive design that's worth more than the sum of its parts? Yes, and more. This phone kicks the already-fantastic (just slightly smaller) Galaxy S7 up a notch with a bigger battery and that wraparound design on both sides that never fails to draw me deeper into whatever I'm viewing or doing.
Everything about the 5.5-inch S7 Edge excels from the inside out, and Samsung has refined the extra navigation software that dresses up the screen's physical curves. There are of course a few minor drawbacks -- there's no such thing as a perfect device -- but something about it feels more organic than your garden-variety phone, more complete. If you've ever seen one of Samsung's curve-screen phones before, such as the S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and Note Edge, you know what I'm talking about.
Samsung has put a lot of effort into making the secondary menu bar more useful: icons get bigger and there are more types of information you can show there, like a shortcut to your favorite apps and tasks. There's a speed dial to your favorite contacts, an optional pane for sports scores and news headlines, even a tool to pull up the flashlight and ruler. These are handy, just use them sparingly.
Is the Edge worth the higher price compared to the S7? If you have the cash, then yes. For me, the phone's shape is reason enough, like how a car enthusiast might upgrade to a leather interior. The extra cost spreads out if you pay by installments; even if you pay in full, the difference diminishes when you consider you'll probably own this phone for the next two years.
That said, you wouldn't be making the mistake of your life by going for a more wallet-friendly phone like the Google Nexus 6P or even the S7. But if you want the most stylish, most all-in-one phone that money can buy, you've found it.
The S7 Edge starts at $750, £639 and AU$1,249. Read more about the S7 Edge's top-notch software and hardware in my full Galaxy S7 review, and read on below for more on the Edge's software, battery performance and specs.

Navigating the Edge
I liked being able to jump into the edge display navigation from any screen, without having to go back to the start screen as you would normally have to do. This was an easy way to reach out to a favorite contact and my most-used app.
At first, it's fun to hit the nine-tab ceiling and try them all, but pretty soon I realized that if I didn't know exactly which pane I wanted, I wasted more time looking for it than if I had just gone to find the thing I wanted from the home screen in the first place. Three or four of these add-ons hit the sweet spot.
Also, some panels that I'd want just don't exist yet, because the companies haven't made plugins.

Monster battery life, bigger size
Battery life was killer in our lab tests, which measure video playback time: almost 20 hours on average, compared to the S7's already astounding 16-hour average. Real-life results were also full steam ahead. Expect the battery to last a long day on a single charge, but I'd prepare to top it up each day anyway, especially if you tend to hit streaming and navigation hard.
It's a solid, heavy device, but I never dropped the phone or felt like I was going to. I'd still buy a glass screen protector and case anyway to protect your pricey investment, but the same goes for any phone. For my small hands, its 5.5-inch screen is a little more manageable than other larger-than-average handsets, such as the iPhone 6S Plus, Google Nexus 6P and Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

Minor drawbacks
As the S7 Edge shares the S7's triumphs (clear 12-megapixel camera, smooth-running processor), it also shares the S7's drawbacks: slightly plastic-looking selfies, a bastion of finger grease you'll have to constantly wipe away and a non-removable battery, which was expected, but whose presence would check the final box of most-wanted features.

HTC 10 review

        If there's one thing the HTC 10 can do, it's deliver great sound. Its dual speakers, coupled with some fancy software technology, means your music and movies are going to sound fantastic. It also looks pretty damn good too -- a hard feat to pull off in a world filled with black slabs.
But at $699 unlocked, £569 in the UK and AU$1,099 in Australia, it fails to offer the same hardware performance and value as its Android rivals. For instance, its performance is comparable to the Google Nexus 6P even though the 6P is cheaper. Its battery doesn't last as long as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5, and there are times when its camera exposure misses the mark.
While those competing handsets could stand to have better audio quality like the 10, HTC's flagship phone ultimately doesn't have all the other things that elevate a good phone into a great phone.

Design: Handsome and refined
The 10 has an aluminum construction with angular edges that adds to the polished, industrial aesthetic HTC is famous for. Its unibody design does mean you can't take out the battery, but the phone feels solid and looks handsome.

With its high-end look, the 10 is a stunner when it comes to design.

HTC got rid of the dual front-facing audio speakers seen in previous years. Now the phone has one speaker grille on the top bezel and a home button (which doubles as a fingerprint reader) on the bottom bezel. The second speaker is still there though, except now it lives on the bottom edge.

As for the fingerprint reader, it provides extra user security and it launches Google's digital assistance service, Google Now, after you longpress it. Though it's not a deal breaker, this Now shortcut can get irritating. There were a bunch of times when I accidentally launched Now just from resting my finger on this home button and it was no fun having to quit it constantly throughout the day.

Software: More fun at your fingertips

The 10 runs Google's Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system with HTC's Sense user interface skinned on top. HTC has gone for a deeper integration with Google, meaning the only web browser you see is Chrome, the only music player you have is Play Music and the only gallery you have is Google Photos.

I love getting rid of bloatware as much as the next person, but I wish HTC kept the native gallery app. I'm super wary about cloud security, and even though you can turn Google syncing off, I just don't want my personal photos linked in any way to any cloud or Google service.

There are some welcomed software goodies though. HTC's signature BlinkFeed gives you a feed of your news and social networks. And Themes lets you customize parts of your interface like the layout, wallpaper and app design. The cool thing about some of these themes is that their home screens aren't restricted by any grid lines, so you can place apps and widgets anywhere.

Apps also don't have to look like labelled, uniform icons. Instead, HTC calls them "stickers" and they come in different size and shapes. If you play around with Themes long enough, your home screen can end up looking like a page out of a children's storybook, with little objects that launch apps only you are privy to knowing.

Sound and audio: Here comes the Boom

A marquee feature of HTC flagships is an emphasis on audio quality, which the company brands as BoomSound. Music through the dual audio speakers definitely sounded louder and clearer than the usual thin and sharp audio I get from other devices.

But what really impressed me was listening to music through the included earbuds. To get the most out of the buds, I configured my "audio profile," which tested the frequency range that I could hear in each ear, and optimized audio output accordingly.

Music through the earbuds sounded amazing -- bass was deep without becoming too overwhelming and I could discern each layer of instrumentation.  Undoutedbly, the audio quality is one of the strongest features of this phone.

With its dual speakers (one is shown here on the top bezel), the handset delivers big sound.

Another unique audio quality of the 10 is its compatibility with Apple's AirPlay streaming standard. That means you can stream audio from the handset to an Apple TV and other devices compatible with Apple's Wi-Fi audio standard, which generally offers better sound quality than Bluetooth.

Camera: Exposing the problem

The device's 12-"Ultrapixel" camera (a term used by HTC to identify its use of larger pixels in its camera lenses) operates smoothly and takes clear shots. Auto- and tap-focus also work quickly, and there's a brightness meter right on the interface so you can adjust the lighting easily. It also has optical image stabilization on both the back and front cameras, which helps smooth out any bumpy videos, quick snapshots and rushed selfies.

Compared to its Android competitors, I found the 10 overexposed its images more readily than the others. In addition, the Galaxy S7 took photos with richer green and blue hues. The G5 and Nexus 6P had deeper red and pink tones. I also found that the 10 had a harder time properly lighting up objects in the foreground when there was a lot of backlighting. Even when I tapped to focus on said objects, the device hardly adjusted its lighting settings and the overall image turned out dim.

I did, however, like the 10's Macro zooming, which seemed to show a shallower depth of field. This blurred the background a tad more, making for more cinematic and dramatic photos. For more about photo quality, check out the pictures below. And be sure to click on each image to see them at their full resolutions.

In this closeup shot, the shallow depth of field gives the photo a nice, dramatic look.

Battery life: Needs more juice

One of the disappointments of the HTC M9 was its battery life, lasting only 8 hours and 40 minutes during our lab test for continuous video playback on Airplane mode. This time around though, the 10's 3,000mAh battery clocked in a much better result of 11 hours and 15 minutes.

But competition is stiff these days and compared to some of its rivals, the 10 lags behind. While the Nexus 6P clocked a similar battery life to the 10, the G5 lasted 12 hours and 34 minutes (it's also removable in case you want to swap it out during the day). In addition, the 3,000mAh battery inside the Galaxy S7 lasted an impressive 16 hours and it can charge wirelessly.

Anecdotally, the 10 was good, but not great. After a weekend on standby without a charge, the device was at about 60 percent Monday morning. On the other hand, using the handset heavily (surfing the Web, downloading apps, taking photos) dropped the battery by 20 percent after 40 minutes.

The phone also uses Quick Charge 3.0 technology from Qualcomm, which promises a 50 percent charge in 30 minutes. When I tested this claim, I got pretty close -- 44 percent in 30 minutes. A full charge takes about an hour and 40 minutes.

Should you get it?

Because it falls in the same price range as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the LG G5, I expected the HTC 10 to deliver the same sort of performance as its fellow Android competitors. While I give it major props for its superb audio quality (seriously, I've never nodded my head to music being played by a phone as strongly as when I was using HTC BoomSound) and handsome good looks, I hesitate to recommend it as anyone's top choice.

For the same price you can get the Galaxy S7, which is also beautifully designed and water resistant. There's also the G5, which beats the 10 in battery life (plus you can replace the battery with its unique modular design if need be).

And while the Google Nexus 6P didn't edge out the 10 in our benchmark tests, it costs about $100 less, has a comparable battery life and gets software updates from Google as soon as they're available.

The mobile landscape is as cutthroat as they come. Despite the HTC 10 being a solid device, it simply doesn't have enough to carry it over the top. So unless you're a diehard music lover, skip the 10 for something better.