Sony has opened the pre-order books for the Xperia 5 IV premium compact smartphone, a content-creation powerhouse that features a bunch of tech trickled down from the company's 2022 flagship, the Xperia 1 IV.
The handset measures 156 x 67 x 8.2 mm (6.1 x 2.6 x 0.3 in) and features a 6.1-inch Full HD+ OLED display at 21:9 aspect that's reported to be 50% brighter than its predecessor and comes topped in scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.
The screen boasts a 120-Hz refresh rate, 240-Hz motion compensation and a 240-Hz touch response – all of which should make for smooth action video watching and precision gaming, with the user able to tweak image and sound settings for optimum gameplay. A 12-megapixel selfiecam punched in the top bezel enables 4K HDR videochats, even in low-light settings.
Sony has opted not to plump for Qualcomm's latest and greatest mobile platform to power this handset, but step back a little for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset with support from 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. Users should still get treated to snappy performance, just not as snappy as the most recent flavor.
Like the current Xperia flagship, the compact handset packs in a triple camera array that's home to three 12-MP snappers – a 24-mm main with a F1.7 aperture and optical image stabilization, 16-mm F2.2 ultra-wide and a 60-mm F2.4 telephoto (also with OIS).
Eye AF and object tracking are available on all rear cameras, plus 20 frames per second AF/AE burst shooting on all HDR lenses. Folks who like to include Matrix-like cinematic slow-mo scenes in their mobile video masterpieces will appreciate the array's ability to capture 4K HDR video recording at 120 fps using any of the rear cameras, and livestreaming is made possible courtesy of a Videography Pro application. The smartphone can even serve as an external monitor for compatible mirrorless cameras.
Unusually for handsets these days, the Xperia 5 IV sports a 3.5-mm headphone jack, and listeners will be able to immerse themselves in Sony's 360 Reality Audio via cabled or wireless buds, as well as front-facing speakers that promise "clearer sound and low-frequency performance." There's support for LDAC high-resolution streaming and DSEE Ultimate AI-based upscaling has been cooked in too.
The smartphone can be used as a field recorder for vocals and acoustic instruments, with on-phone multi-track editing possible before saving to the cloud and tapping into "Sony's unique sound source separation technology to reduce noise and separate vocal and acoustic guitar sounds."
The 5,000-mAh battery supports wired fast-charging to get up to 50% capacity in 30 minutes, but now wireless charging has been added to the specs list.
The IP65/68 Xperia 5 IV will go on sale from the end of October for around US$1,000. Pre-orders are open now.
Product page: Xperia 5 IV