SpecEagle
SpecEagle review · Sony

Xperia 5 review: Compact 21:9 flagship with triple cam and Snapdragon 855.

SpecEagle Editorial·Oct 2019·$799
Overall
79/100
Class rank
#2 of 7
Tier
Flagship
Buy?
At the right price
The verdict, up front

Compact 21:9 outlier.

Xperia 5 distilled the Xperia 1's 21:9 cinema format into a one-handable shell. Triple OIS cams, 855 silicon, and an OLED HDR display made it Sony's most balanced flagship of the late 2010s.

01Display

86/100

86/100 puts it above the 83-point average for flagship phones of 2019.

TypeOLED HDR BT.2020
Size6.1 inches, 21:9
Resolution1080 x 2520 px

02Camera

80/100

80/100 puts it above the 77-point average for flagship phones of 2019.

Main12 MP wide IMX363, f/1.6, OIS
Telephoto12 MP 2x, OIS
Ultrawide12 MP, f/2.4
Selfie8 MP, f/2.0
Video4K HDR

03Performance

84/100

At 84/100 this is one of the strongest performance showings among flagship phones of 2019 — 7 points above the cohort average.

ChipsetSnapdragon 855 (7nm)
GPUAdreno 640

04Battery

70/100

70/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2019.

Capacity3140 mAh
Charging18W PD

05Build

82/100

82/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2019.

What works
  • One-hand-friendly 21:9 form
  • Genuine triple-cam flagship setup
  • OLED HDR with BT.2020 colour
What doesn't
  • Battery small for OLED 21:9
  • Slow 18W charging
  • No wireless charging
Cross-shop it against
Galaxy Note 10+
$1099 · score 90/100

How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 7-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .