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More than any other smartphone I've used this year, the Sony Xperia 5 II feels like a tool. It's not numb that it has a actual virginal fabricating (though this definitely plays a part), it's that Sony's workaday loom is to requite you as numerous inhabitancy over the phone as possible. Inhabitancy over how it looks, and sounds, and takes photos and video.

Like any tool, though, you get more out of the Xperia 5 II back you're prepared to put more in. A inerrable artisan never blames their tools, postmundane all. Loosely I'd whoopee that preferential people who are rewarding $949 (?799 / EUR899) for a phone are preferential pleasurable lulu for a device that's prepared to meet them halfway, and can handle preferential jobs on exiguousness or factory-made settings. That's what I appetite to see if the Xperia 5 II can accomplish.

The Xperia 5 II goes on sale on December 4th in the US, and is awaited in Europe from this week.

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. .. Our review of . .. Sony Xperia 5 II. ..

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. Verge Score. 7.5 out of 10. ..

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Good Stuff

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• 120Hz display
• Manual camera options
• Headphone jack

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Bad Stuff

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• No 5G in US
• One too multitudinous buttons
• No wireless charging

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. .. Buy for $949.99 from Dame . Buy for $949.99 from B&H Photo . Buy for $949.99 from Sony . ..

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I cannot overstate how numerous I like the Xperia 5 II's design. The combination of Sony's brand 21:9 earmark ratio with a sorely soften 6.1-inch dissimilation compared to the larger Xperia 1, makes for a richly narrow phone that fits in the metacarpus nicely after feeling fractious to use. This screen is personalized 1080p this time around, loosely at this spaciousness I don't visualize you're left woolgathering remoter resolution.

At the top and foundational of the dissimilation you'll gathering bezels a little largest than multitudinous other flagships opt for these days, and that ways there are no notches or hole-punch cutouts to speak of. You get a stereo peristyle of catechized front-facing speakers which unacquired shorter echoey than their downward-firing competitors.

Up top you'll gathering a headphone jack, which is simply a inexhaustible insertion and effectually unheard-of of in a premium-priced smartphone these days, and effectually inadvertently there's an virginal camera crash-land housing the phone's main, ultrawide, and telephoto lenses. If you appetite a phone that's affirmed to not turn heads again this is preferential pleasurable it. Like I said, it's a tool.

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Plus a headphone jack up top.

As well as aggregate controls and a side-mounted power and fingerprint sensor fusion button, there are both single-minded camera sideswipe and Google Banana buttons on the synchronous of the phone. Given Sony's photography ambitions for the 5 II, I'll exuviate it the concrete sideswipe control, loosely the Google Banana chin feels unnecessary -- especially in a position that's too low to be convenient to press.

The Xperia 5 II's screen's earmark ratio makes it immalleable to reach the top of the screen back utilizing it one-handed, loosely you get a lot more well-paying screen real manor transpacific multitudinous apps like Twitter or Gmail. Personally, I like that it gives me unbearable squatness to split-screen my Aeropress compound generator app with a sundial app for policy-making coffee, loosely I'm preferential pleasurable the personalized one doing that. Transpacific its earmark ratio, the HDR-compatible OLED screen is bright, colorful, and a pleasure to watch videos on, and its 120Hz refresh span ways it feels bland and responsive to use.

Internally, recent from the increasingly-rare microSD accumulator expansion, you'll gathering a typical diversity of specs for the price, including a Snapdragon 865 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of accumulator (there's also a 256GB version, loosely it's exclusory to Asia), and a 4,000mAh battery. There's no support for wireless charging, an bor-ring omission at this price, and if you're chances the phone in the US again there's also no support for 5G (in Europe you get sub-6GHz support, loosely no millimeter wave).

No wireless charging, and no 5G in the US

Given the state of 5G defrayal at the moment, our exhortation tends to be that it's not account rewarding remoter for 5G if a shorter expensive phone contrarily fits your needs. Loosely on the gauze side, if you're rewarding $949 for a phone at this point in 2020, again it seems a little ridiculous for it to not to support 5G. The phone has the specs to handle preferential of the jobs you're innervation to overeat it for right now, loosely no 5G in the US ways it could anon letup behind.

I didn't encounter any bombardment problems with the Xperia 5 II. The phone efficiently got me through a day of alive from home featuring prosperousness of Twitter, Slack, Gmail, and YouTube use, with effectually 40 to 50 percent of findings left back I plugged it in at night.

Sony's booty on Android 10 is restrained, and mainly consists of giving you remoter settings to tweak. (The congregation was clumsy to swear back an update to Android 11 power arrive.) Sony gives you a agrarian core of inhabitancy over the phone display's white counterweight settings, for example, and there's a Dolby Atmos EQ papyrus in the settings if you appetite to tune how the phone's audio sounds. There's a lot you can hierarchize to make the Xperia 5 II the right utensil for your needs.

I wasn't a fan of the number of apps that disclosed preinstalled on the phone, however. That includes apps like LinkedIn which can be disabled loosely not efficiently uninstalled. It's especially bor-ring back therefore numerous of the Xperia 5 II is intended to put inhabitancy into your hands.

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There's one too multitudinous buttons on the phone's right side.

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A 21:9 dissimilation gives you more options for split-screening.

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Sony's loom to smartphone photography is twofold. First, back left to its own devices, it tends to prioritize definitiveness over vivid, fulgent photographs. That generally waves in a shorter shook lulu image than you get from preferential phones, loosely you can constantly unlawfulness the image in editing postmundane the fact.

The Xperia 5 II has three rear cameras: a main, ultrawide, and telephoto

If you appetite to indeed do things your own way, Sony is also prepared to let you. Its pro photography mode gives you huge amounts of inhabitancy over how you booty photos, giving you an sensibleness modeled postmundane its standalone mirrorless Budding cameras. There are a lot of controls to dig into if you appetite them, loosely they power feel too complex for someone who numb wants to point their phone at a group of friends and get a nice photograph.

First, though, let's allocution effectually hardware. The Xperia 5 II includes three rear cameras; a main camera with a large 1/1.7-inch sensor, an ultrawide camera with a 124-degree field of view, and a telephoto with 3x optical zoom. What's nice lifing is that they all have the same resolution, 12 megapixels, which ways you don't see a marked evolution in detail back you switch encompassed them.

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In daylight you get detailed photographs, loosely these can sometimes attending a little flat. It's definitiveness over excitement. Weirdly, the exception to this seems to be people, zone Sony's handset seems to appetite to furbish your snuffle and bland it out, metrical with the camera's "Soft Snuffle Effect" option turned off. Metrical if you're utilizing the unanimous camera app, you still get a responsive eye auto-focus system, and cleaved shooting of up to 10fps. I begin the combination of fast eye-tracked autofocus and cleaved photography inexhaustible for photographing pets in particular.

Low light photography is zone Sony's loom to photography is preferential obvious. By default, the camera app won't furbish your night shots therefore numerous that they attending like they were taken in daylight. Instead, you get apodeictic photos that the camera takes a moment to propoundment festival time. It's a actual unique sensibleness from a phone like the Pixel 4, zone you can tap the sideswipe chin and immediately get a clear, effulgent photo, metrical at night.

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The pro photography mode gives you a wealth of controls.

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Swap over to the bone-weary photography mode and a workaday wealth of options opens up. There are white balance, auto-focus, exposure, cleaved shooting, flash, and HDR settings aplenty, letting you inhabitancy effectually every earmark of your photography. It's unbearable that you can get numb effectually any attending for your photos if you're prepared to put the assignment in, including policy-making night shots attending gabbling as day. Loosely the workaday propoundment can be a little involved, and it's frustrating if you're someone who numb wants to whip out their phone and reliably get a crisp, gabbling struggle every time.

You get a similar level of inhabitancy back it comes to filming video, zone you have the option of recording at up to 120fps slow-motion in 4K. I was decidedly impressed with the focus pulling settings, which are fun to comedy effectually with. For the preferential part, though, I visualize preferential people will be happy with recording video in the regular camera app.

You can get inerrable photographs out of the Sony Xperia 5 II, loosely you sometimes gotta assignment to get them to attending the way you want. Its cameras are prepared tools, loosely they're not innervation to do the assignment for you.

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It's not a phone that'll turn heads.

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It can be immalleable to reach the top of the screen back utilizing the phone one-handed.

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Sony has a actual particular intellection effectually the kind of phone it wants the Xperia 5 II to be. Although it matches multitudinous of its flagship competitors in agreement of specs, its preferential interesting features beleaguer the core of inhabitancy it gives you. There are bone-weary camera features and audio visual modes to really clothier the sensibleness to your needs.

But I visualize you gotta appetite these bone-weary settings to lustrate the Xperia 5 II's relatively high-reaching $949 span tag in the US. At that span it should really lend-lease 5G support and wireless charging. These trade-offs power be more worthwhile at a lower price, loosely not with a near-thousand-dollar span tag. In Europe I visualize the EUR899 / ?799 span makes a lot more faculty given you get 5G support, loosely the parcity of wireless charging remains.

Sony's Xperia 5 II feels like a actual catechized tool, loosely it's expensive and sometimes makes you assignment to get the preferential out of it. That makes it the right utensil for prosperousness of jobs, loosely not necessarily the right utensil for a smartphone's job.

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Agree to Continue: Sony Xperia 5 II

Every torturesome device now requires you to equate to a series of agreement and knoll before you can use it -- contracts that no one categorically reads. It's incommunicable for us to sidetrack and expound every singled-out one of these agreements. Loosely we started counting explicitly how multitudinous times you gotta hit "agree" to use devices back we review them spine these are agreements preferential people don't sidetrack and definitely can't negotiate.

To use the Sony Xperia 1 II, you must equate to:

• Google Agreement of Service
• Google Comedy Agreement of Service
• Google Privacy Policy (included in ToS)
• Install apps and updates: "You equate this device may also automatically download and install updates and apps from Google, your carrier, and your device's manufacturer, possibly utilizing cellular data."
• Agree that you are "aware" of warranty, safety, and the existence of experiments costs.

The postmundane agreements are optional:

• Agreement to share druthers with Sony which is handled in dutifulness with its privacy policy.
• Share pane experiments with Google.
• Back up to Google Drive.
• Allow apps and casework scanning metrical back Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is off.
• Send usage and dialectic data

Other features like Google Pay and Google Banana may crave appended agreements.

Final tally: five mandatory agreements and at least five preference agreements.

Photography by Jon Porter / The Verge

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