small but therefore not nice

The Xperia 5 III is Sony’s more compact high-end phone. Still, the device makes no compromises in terms of specifications, including the camera setup. Is this small top telephone not to be underestimated? You will discover it in this review.

Sony Xperia 5 III

Sony presented its three new phones in April: the Xperia 1 III (1299 euros) top-of-the-line device, this slightly smaller Xperia 5 III (999 euros) and the Xperia 10 III (429 euros) smartphone from the middle segment. Whoever thought that we had seen everything from the Japanese brand, was faced with surprises this year. The Xperia Pro-I is Sony’s new camera phone with a 1-inch camera sensor. The review of that device is yet to come, but first let’s take a look at what the Xperia 5 III has in store for us.

Specifications

(A)typical Sony design

The Sony Xperia 5 III is a real premium device in terms of finish. The front and back are finished with scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass Victus glass and the sides of the device are made of aluminum. So nothing to remark. At the top we find a 3.5 mm jack for your wired earphones, which is rare for a phone costing 999 euros. We also find the SIM slot, which you can remove from the device without a SIM tool. That’s incredibly useful.

The device has room for two SIM cards or one SIM card and a microSD card. The Xperia 5 III is also completely waterproof and dustproof, which we can expect in this price range. What really stands out is that the device has an atypical ratio. The device is longer and narrower than the standard smartphone. This made it easier to operate the phone with one hand.

Sony has also chosen, as always, not to provide a screen notch for the front camera, which is in the edge at the top of the screen. So there are still fairly thick bezels at the top and bottom of the screen, but this didn’t really bother me much during the test period. But I can’t speak for everyone with that and why they are still there after all these years, it remains a mystery.

The speakers can be found at the top and bottom and thus they provide a nice stereo sound, but qualitatively the sound could have been even better. On the right side of the device we find two more buttons: a Google Assistant button and a physical camera button. It works exactly like a real camera. You press it partly to focus and all the way to take the final shot.

21:9 screen

The Sony Xperia 5 III has a 6.1-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 2520×1080 pixels. That is less than the 4K resolution of the Xperia 1 III, but there is actually little wrong with smartphone screens with Full HD. In fact, the Xperia 1 III usually displays Full HD because it benefits the battery life.

The atypical ratio of this Xperia 5 III is logically also reflected in the aspect ratio. The phone has a 21:9 ratio, which makes it suitable for watching modern movies or series. The screen is beautiful and you can also adjust a lot in the settings to configure it completely to your taste. The screen also has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which ensures that everything runs very smoothly. The screen brightness is also on the low side for a flagship and that is different with most competitors. We also saw this with the Xperia 1 III, as you can read in the review. The automatic brightness did its job well.

Fast and hot

If you know that the Xperia 5 III is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, then in principle you shouldn’t worry. The phone is super fast and can actually handle anything. A game like Genshin Impact will run without any frame drops on the phone, except when the most graphical power is required.

What I also noticed is that with normal use, the phone can get really warm after half an hour, especially if you charge it while using the phone. The phone then chooses quite drastically to lower the refresh rate to 60 Hz. I’ve experienced that a few times and that’s a shame to see. The phone also has 8 GB of RAM available, which keeps apps running nicely in the background. There is also 128 GB of storage, which can be expanded via a microSD card.

Disappointing vibration

What I really noticed – in the less good sense – is the vibrating motor. Haptic feedback feels better on the older Samsung Galaxy A3 2017 compared to the Xperia 5 III. I don’t think that is worth a minus for cheaper devices, but with a phone of 999 euros it certainly is.

Good battery, mediocre fast charger

Sony has put a 4500 mAh battery in the Xperia 5 III, which is an improvement over the 4000 mAh battery in the Xperia 5 II. You will certainly notice this, because with normal use you can easily reach the end of the day with a screen time of 5 hours. The phone offers support for 30W fast charging and you can certainly not call that groundbreaking. The charger is just included. There is no support for wireless charging and that is really a loss, especially considering the price of this device.

Excellent camera setup

Sony is of course putting a lot of effort into the cameras with this phone. The camera setup hardly differs from its more expensive brother, the Xperia 1 III. Only the depth sensor is gone. There are, however, three 12 MP cameras.

Cameras:

• 12 MP main camera (f/1.7)
• 12 MP ultra wide-angle camera (f/2.2)
• 12 MP telephoto camera (f/2.3/2.8)
• 8 MP selfie camera (f/2.0)

The main camera takes beautiful photos in daylight and even when it gets a bit darker, the photos are still rich in detail and contain little noise. The ultrawide lens also takes beautiful photos with enough details and colors that differ little from the main camera. That’s good to see.

Then you have the telephoto lens and there is something special going on. You can choose a focal length or focal length of 70 or 105 mm. You can zoom in optically 2.9 times or 4.4 times. That is, it can cope with shorter and longer zoom ranges. The telephoto lens is of good quality and takes beautiful, detailed photos with colors that sometimes differ from those captured by the main camera. The camera falls through the basket when it gets a bit darker, but we also see that happen more often with telephoto lenses and darkness.

Below you can see photos taken with the cameras of the Xperia 5 III. The last two images were taken with the wide-angle camera and telephoto camera respectively.

In short, the entire camera is very capable and takes very nice pictures. You can choose to take matters into your own hands in the Photo-pro app. The camera interface then becomes a lot more complicated for laymen, but the photography enthusiast can find his thing in it. Videos from this camera are okay, but can’t keep up with the top in video.

Google experience on your Sony phone

The Xperia 5 III runs on Android 11 with Sony’s shell over it. The Android experience is actually almost the same as Google intended it to be. There are also not that many extra features, which is not necessarily a disadvantage. Sony takes over most apps from Google. The Photos, Messages and Phone apps are all made by Google, and Discover is also present on the home screen. That is an overview of news articles. Sony adds its own camera apps and a music player. There are also bloatware app, but luckily you can uninstall it. When it comes to update policies, Sony isn’t exactly progressive with a meager 2 year warranty on version and security updates.

Conclusion

The Sony Xperia 5 III is a phone that mainly focuses on the camera and if you look at the differences with the Xperia 1 III, they are minimal. The phone has a somewhat smaller screen, but a design and features that are otherwise largely similar.

The screen is good, but the limited brightness is not a good thing. Furthermore, the performance is smooth, but when the phone gets a bit warmer during normal use, the refresh rate of the screen goes down. The battery is good, but wireless charging is missing and it charges with relatively low power. The software on the Xperia 5 III is neat, but Sony also adds few interesting extras.

Do you always notice that word ‘but’? It scores well in all other areas, but given the high suggested retail price of 999 euros, expectations are also high. ‘Good’ is simply too small given the asking price. We were able to establish that earlier in our test with the Xperia 1 III.

Where the Xperia 5 III can excel the most is the camera, even if the competition is also very strong in that area. If you are interested in a smaller phone with powerful specifications, the Xperia 5 III is worth considering.

Alternatives to the Sony Xperia 5 III are the Google Pixel 6 (649 euros), the ASUS ZenFone 8 (726 euros), the Samsung Galaxy S21 (711 euros) and the Xiaomi 11T Pro (579 euros).

Buy Sony Xperia 5 III

The Sony Xperia 5 III is available in a black and green color for 999 euros.