Sony Announces Xperia 5 II: 120Hz Full-Fledged Small Phone

Sony is following up on one of its newer form-factors that the company had introduced in 2019 with the Xperia 5. The new Xperia 5 II follows up on the smaller flagship sibling device, retaining its form-factor. The Xperia 5 II also substantially improving its design as well as maintaining an almost complete feature-parity with the bigger Xperia 1 II. The new phone also sets out to differentiate itself from other Sony offerings.

Sony seemingly has focused on the more gaming-centric usability of the device even though externally it does not have the flair of a gaming phone. With a new internal heat dissipation system and a 120Hz refresh rate OLED and 240Hz sample rate touch input, the Xperia 5 II punches above its weight when it comes to fluidity. Sony has achieved this all whilst retaining the form-factor and weight of the Xperia 5, even cramming in a new 4000mAh battery just by virtue of improved internal engineering.

This is Sony’s seemingly most competitive package in years. A Snapdragon 865 SoC at the core of the phone allows the device to have excellent performance. Although the SoC is quite conservative in terms of its power draw, the Xperia 1 II did have some very slight throttling under sustained workloads such as gaming. In order to alleviate this, Sony has developed an improved thermal dissipation system inside the phone.

Sony developed a new large graphite pad that is able to transfer heat from the SoC to the larger footprint of the screen panel.

This should help the device achieve almost indefinite sustained performance under normal circumstances. Memory wise is a reasonable 8GB of DRAM and storage capacities at 128 and 256GB, extendable with microSD cards. In terms of design, the Xperia 5 II takes queues from the Xperia 1 II as it features an almost identical front and back design. On the front, this means that there are still two top and bottom bezels instead of more modern notches or hole-punch cameras.

This comes at the benefit of having two surprisingly good and much better balanced stereo front speakers than other competitor smartphones. One change in the ergonomics of the phone is that the Xperia 5 II comes with a rounded side-frame design rather the more rectangular and boxy design of that of the 1 II. In this sense the phone seems to be more similar to the Xperia 1, and frankly that is a positive as it gives a much better in-hand feel and ergonomics than the 1 II.

This is still a rather small phone by today’s standards. At 68mm width it is narrower than the smallest Galaxy S20, and still only weighs a reasonable 163 grams. Sony has been able to increase the battery capacity from the original Xperia 5 from 3110mAh to a new 4000mAh unit. At the same time, reengineering the internals of the phone, reorienting the motherboard, and using a multi-stack design.

The battery compartment also uses a wider footprint inside the phone and maximizes the space used in the frame.

The display of the Xperia 5 II is totally new for Sony. It is a 2540 x 1080 resolution OLED screen, but this time around it introduces a 120Hz refresh rate and even features a 240Hz touch input sample rate. That is a big jump from not only the Xperia 5, but also 2020’s Xperia 1 II. A 120Hz refresh rate at FHD+ such as on the Xperia 5 II is a much better choice for the user experience.

The resolution loss should not be that bad on this 6.1” display as it is smaller than the norm today so PPI is still reasonably high. The rear camera design is extremely similar to that of the Xperia 1 II. In fact, it is essentially an identical camera setup in terms of the modules. A main 24mm equivalent module with a 12MP 1/1.76” sensor with 1.8µm pixels and an f/1.7 optics system with OIS serves as an excellent primary camera.

This is augmented by a 70mm equivalent 3x optical zoom 12MP 1.0µm f/2.4 module with OIS acting as the telephoto camera. There is also a 16mm equivalent 12MP 1.4µm f/2.2 module as the ultra-wide angle unit. The one thing missing from the Xperia 5 II that is present on its bigger sibling is the time-of-flight depth sensor, not that big of a loss for photography.

Sony’s camera experience has never been that of hardware, but rather their approach to software processing.

Sony has a more hands-off approach to pictures, more like their digital camera or mirrorless systems. In that regard while the Xperia 5 II looks great on paper, do not expect an experience as great as an iPhone or a Galaxy. The phone is only 8.0mm thick, which is still extremely usable given its narrow width. Sony brought back the 3.5mm headphone jack, and in the Xperia 5 II the company even claims to have improved audio quality by improving cross-talk and the audio signal path.

It is great to see companies admit that removing this port was a mistake and revert their past choices. It now really gives the Xperia 5 II quite a differentiating advantage over the competition as almost nobody else features this capability. With IP68 water resistance, it looks like the Xperia 5 II is ticking almost every single feature check-box of what you would want in a phone in 2020.

As an overall package, the phone looks incredibly competitive. The only real caveat of the device is its pricing at $949. It is still a bit pricy compared to other flagships in 2020, especially this late into the generational cycle. In Europe, the Xperia 5 II will be available in October 2020, while the United States gets it only starting December 4th 2020.

Sony will charge $400 for its PlayStation 5 “digital edition” without a disc drive, and $500 for its version with one.

PlayStation 5’s launch games lineup includes the highly anticipated superhero sequel Spider-Man: Miles Morales. PlayStation 5’s controller has special trigger buttons that give us feedback to make the objects we interact with in the game world feel like they are here, in our hands. Both consoles have the same chips and other hardware inside. PlayStation 5 will launch November 12th 2020 in the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.

And November 19th 2020 in the rest of the world. Preorders will start Thursday September 18th 2020. Sony began its event discussing high profile games Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Final Fantasy XVI, both of which will be exclusive to the PlayStation. Spider-Man will launch with PlayStation 5 in time for the 2020 holiday shopping season, while Sony did not say when Final Fantasy XVI will launch.

Sony also showed off Resident Evil Village, the eighth installment in the popular horror franchise, and teased a new sequel to its hit 2018 action adventure game God of War. Now with the release date and price announced, Sony’s and Microsoft’s upcoming consoles mark a key moment for the video game industry. Transitioning to new devices that promise faster chips and new features to make games all that much more complex or realistic looking.

Microsoft’s entry-level Xbox Series S that will launch alongside its more powerful Xbox Series X would cost $299.99 and $499.99 respectively, and launch on November 10th 2020.

Xbox will also be available on a payment plan of $25 per month and $35 per month, including access to a bundle of Microsoft’s gaming social network and other services. To take on Microsoft more directly, Sony also announced its PlayStation Plus Collection, a library of hit PS4 games such as God of War and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. The games will be made available to subscribers to Sony’s $9.99 per month PlayStation Plus gaming service.

Microsoft’s $9.99 per month Xbox Games Pass service has often been called the best deal in gaming for offering more than 100 games. The last two console generations from Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro and Microsoft’s Xbox One X have been transformative in terms of audio quality. Consumers have been able to move away from high-fidelity tuners and sprawling surround-sound speaker systems to relatively inexpensive and high-quality headphones.

Turns out, things are still a little bit up in the air. Microsoft has so far been the most forthcoming. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of Sony’s PlayStation 5. PlayStation has its own wireless headphone technology. There is a new Sony-branded set of headphones on the way with the PlayStation 5. In addition, older peripherals like the Platinum and Gold wireless headsets will also be compatible.

Sony has also announced that third-party headsets that connect via USB port or audio jack will be compatible with the PlayStation 5.

Beyond that, all the third-party manufacturers said the new PlayStation 5 will not feature an optical audio connection. Manufacturers like Astro, SteelSeries, and others use that optical connection to split in-game audio off from voice chat. That allows you to have digital surround sound and low-latency, high-fidelity voice chat coming through the same speakers.

It is also what allows you to balance the levels between those two different streams. If manufacturers do not have optical, obviously they do not have a way to do that. Manufacturers only have a single audio source, which will be from USB. So the SteelSeries Pro Wireless will still work on the PlayStation 5 by just plugging in the USB and you will be able to get get your full audio from that.

The the one thing you will not be able to do is adjust your your mix between game and chat. Presumably a menu within the PlayStation 5 dashboard would let you do that, but no one can be sure until reviewers get their chance to boot up the device for the first time. It is also a lot less convenient than just turning a physical dial on your headset. Astro has made a name for itself with these kinds of high-quality physical interfaces that allow users to fiddle with their levels on the fly.

Astro’s wireless A50 headset will only require a firmware update to be compatible with the next-generation Xbox consoles.

Astro’s wireless A50 headset is likewise a different story for the PlayStation 5. Astro is coming out with a dongle called the Astro HDMI Adapter that will solve the problem. The Astro HDMI Adapter will be available for $39.99 through the Astro website, as well as select retailers. The Astro HDMI Adapter enables game sound + voice chat mixing and features lagless 4K HDMI video passthrough while adding a TosLink optical jack.

Registered owners of Astro products will be able to submit their serial number and receive a $15 discount online. The good news is that both of the next-generation console controllers still feature a 3.5 mm audio connector in them. In fact, both consoles have been designed with that kind of stereo interface in mind. Back in the Xbox 360 days, consoles actually did not decode digital audio for you.

The reason that MixAmp and the A50 was so popular is because the consoles would output signal over optical or over HDMI, but you had to have a device that does Dolby decoding. In the current generation, only Microsoft’s console was capable of decoding that digital audio and outputting surround sound via stereo output on its own. Now, with the PlayStation 5, Sony is bringing its own new technology to bear.

The PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech solution should be able to do similar things with positional audio.

That means de facto audio parity between the two console brands. It also means that the next generation of third-party headsets will need to differentiate themselves in a whole different way. No longer will they be able to depend on bells and whistles like adjustable in-game audio levels and custom sound profiles to set themselves apart. Instead, expect them to try to compete on things like sound quality, comfort, cross-platform compatibility, and price.

In August 2020, Sony has a lot of buffer in the video games division. PlayStation 5 will be definitely Sony’s crucial driver for this. It is the start of a new console generation, the previous PlayStation was released 7 years back, and the PlayStation 5 buzz is already through the roof. Sony forecasts a modest year-on-year rise of 0.6% in the gaming department’s operating earnings at 240 billion yen for its fiscal year that concludes at end March 2021.

That is even as Sony approximates that group profit to decline. That was a more than 82% year-on-year rise, even as sales of consoles declined. Revenue for Sony is anticipated to jump over 26% year-on-year to 2.5 trillion yen. Sony’s shares are sitting at their greatest level since June 2001. Experts say there might be additional upside in the next year as Sony prepares to introduce the flagship PlayStation 5 video games console.

Experts expect Sony to sell 6.7 million units of PlayStation 5 in the existing financial year and the company’s own revenue forecast will likely be beaten.

PlayStation 5 will be offered in time for the 2020 holiday, just as Microsoft plans to launch its new Xbox Series X. Still, Sony’s stock was around 2.2% lower at 8,495.00 yen. Experts see this as a short-term blip, given shares stand at a 19-year high. Sony is also gearing up to launch the PlayStation 5, its newest console since the PlayStation 4 in 2013.

Sony published better-than-expected incomes for the April to June quarter and provided an outlook ahead of agreement. Experts expect Sony’s shares to hit 9,538.95 yen in the next 12 months, buoyed by the company’s strong gaming company. Under the 2 CEOs, Sony has actually put a large emphasis on its gaming division. In Sony’s financial first quarter, the company’s video game and network services unit accounted for about 54% of overall operating profit.

Profit tipped over 48% year-on-year in the quarter ending in June to 25.4 billion yen. Sony forecasts that the company will see earnings decrease over 44% for the financial year. These problems will probably disappear as the covid concerns are relieved and as they win more consumers and re-boost their market share into 2021. Sony saw declines in profits in other essential companies consisting of films, music, and CMOS.

CMOS has been a critical company for Sony in current times given its proficiency in smartphone electronic camera sensors, which it sells to clients such as Huawei and Apple.

CMOS refers to the type of image sensor chip Sony offers to smartphone makers. Sony’s membership service called PlayStation Plus, saw customer numbers reach 44.9 million in the April to June quarter, greater than 36.2 million in the same period last year. 9,650 yen price target, if struck, would be almost 11% advantage. Sony offering 15 to 20 million systems in the PlayStation 5’s first year of sales.

Sony’s 19-year high share rate is a vote of self-confidence by investors in the multi-year turnaround plan that was initiated by previous CEO Kazuo Hirai. Hirai took the role in 2012, and was succeeded by Kenichiro Yoshida in 2018. Strong user engagement and strength in digital sales will rollover to the PlayStation 5, giving good incomes momentum for Sony in the next 2 to 3 years.

These trends will assist Sony’s earnings going forward. With people staying home more in the second quarter of the year due to covid-related shutdowns around the globe, Sony sold 91 million video games. Of the total variety of video games sold, 74% were from digital downloads, the highest number on record.