Flashback: the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium was the first ever smartphone with a 4K display

14 November 2021
However, Sony was maximizing the wrong thing - high refresh rate, not high resolution was the way forward for flagships.

Sort by:

TITAN ABNORMAL, 14 Nov 2021I own this, sadly the procesor is overheat.That is correct. Even Sony themselves confirmed that the early batches of the Snapdragon 810 chipset in the Xperia Z3+ overheated pretty much all the time. Outside of overheating issues, there are numerous cases of boot loop with Snapdragon 808 and Snapdragon 810 smartphones as what had happened to LG G4 and Huawei Nexus 6P.

    • ?
    • Anonymous
    • TL%
    • 14 Nov 2021

    I like the look of this phone much more than their latest phones.

      I own this, sadly the procesor is overheat.

        And this was a true 4K Display!

        Technically speaking, we don't have any phones today with a 4K Display. The Xperia 1 mk 1/2/3/Pro have a resolution of 3840 x 1644 as opposed to 3840 x 2160. It is only 76% of the same resolution. And on top of that, the Z5 Premium had a full-RGB arrangement, whereas these newer devices have a "shared sub-pixel" (PenTile) arrangement. When you compare sub-pixels, the difference being roughly 2/3, the amount of total sub pixels between the two becomes (24.9M vs 12.6M). Yikes, that's a huge difference!

        It is a difference of 100% versus 51%. I think this topic is quite interesting, and you should watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfvTjQ9MCwY

          I remembered adoring that awesome 4K screen when I tried it out at a smartphone shop. Even the Exmor RS 25MP camera sensor was a direct descendant of Nokia's PureView technology that first existed in the 808 PureView and the Lumia 1020 years before that Xperia. Shame that it was powered by Snapdragon 810 chipset, or else I would have already owned one.

          P.S "1080p displays are still pretty common these days, even on flagships, but 90-120Hz is a must and some models have hit 165Hz." Really? I never care much about the high refresh rate on smartphones except for mobile gaming. Other than that, I switch back to 60Hz and pretty much forget about it all the time.

            • S
            • Sony user
            • XDX
            • 14 Nov 2021

            I am still using my Z5 Premium, the mirror back has it's use.