Top Xperia Z5 accessories
Was spending hundreds on the Sony Xperia Z5 not enough of a bank account battering for your liking? Why not siphon off a bit more of your life savings with these accessories?
We jest: accessories aren't just a way for companies to make an extra buck off you. They can let a phone radically extend its tendrils into your life. And while that may sound terrifying, we might as always just lean into it. Mobiles rule our worlds, folks.
From fancy cases to speakers and accessories that'll turn your Sony Xperia Z5 from Android phone to movie jukebox, here's our pick of the best Z5 extra bits.
Style Cover Window
£29.99/$49.99
Want to give your Xperia Z5 a split personality? Sony makes a special case that gives your new friend an all-new screen display. The Style Cover Window is a flip case with a window in the front. When you close it, a little magnet talks to a hall sensor in the phone, letting it know the case is there and closed.
Pretty smart, eh? What happens then is the display goes black apart from the little bit that sits under the case's window, displaying the time and so on. Of course, these kinds of cases have been around for years.
What makes the Style Cover Window a bit special is that it's designed to let you use up to five applications through the window, when it's all closed up. It's a good way to waste time on social media on the train without… wasting even more time just getting to the app.
Ministry of Sound Audio M Plus
£179 / Around $272
You might think of Ministry of Sound as a club you'd never set foot in. Bass bins the size of small vans? It's an acquired taste. However, the brand has just come up with a surprisingly good set of audio gadgets.
The sweet spot is the mid-size model, the Ministry of Sound Audio M Plus. This is a wireless, battery-powered Bluetooth speaker, a similar size to the Sonos Play:1, but not tied into any proprietary system and offering much better portability.
It's the driver setup that's really worth geeking out too, though. In most respects, it looks like and is a style-injected version of the classic hifi bookshelf speaker. However, it packs in a bass radiator too. This is a passive driver used to crank up the bass output in tiny speakers. Now, the Ministry of Sound Audio M Plus isn't tiny, but the radiator lets the speaker produce a pretty nice bass thump even when you're listening at low volumes. Ministry of Sound, you've done well, kid.
Game Control Mount GCM10
£19.99/$29.99
One of the Xperia Z5's USPs is that it supports Remote Play, letting you play your PS4 games while you're on the toilet. Come on, we all know that's what you'd do if you don't already.
The issue is that console games aren't really that great to play on a phone. Remote Play is the greatest Sony Xperia feature no-one seems to use.
There is a solution, though. The Game Control Mount GCM10 is a genius apparatus that hooks up your Sony Xperia Z5 to a Dualshock 4 PS4 controller, turning the duo into a makeshift handheld games console. Forget playing Dead Trigger 2 with one of those third-party Android controllers. This is much better.
PS Plus subscription
£39.99/$53.95 a year
On-board with Remote Play? Now we need to get you tooled-up with some games. Sure you can head down to your local game store, assuming they haven't all closed, and pick up a used, slightly scratched, slightly odd-smelling copy of something for £10/$10 less than the new price. But there is a better way.
Get on-board with PS Plus. This is the main paid-for subscription service for the online PlayStation world, and it gets you much more than just online multiplayer.
The biggie is the monthly games selection. You get a bunch of new games to download for free each month, for PS3, PS4 and Vita. These don't just disappear at the end of the month either. As long as you 'purchased' them during their promo month, you can carry on downloading and playing them for as long as you stay subscribed to PS Plus. It's a game hoarder's delight.
Google Chromecast
£30/$35
Google has already outed its second-generation Chromecast. And while it does a lot of the same stuff as the original ultra-low cost streaming tool, it looks totally different.
Gone is the anonymous USB dongle style of the first version, replaced with a round look. Is it more flying saucer or mini measuring tape? Either works.
The design is what makes the second Chromecast seem totally new, but it also supports 5GHz Wi-Fi ac, so can make much better use of a good router's skills. But what is Chromecast actually good for? It lets you stream from all sorts of apps, including games, on your phone. It's a cheaper alternative to something like Apple TV.
Joby Gorillapod GripTight
£28/$30
The Sony Xperia Z5 has one of the best phone cameras out there. And it sure does have the highest-res sensor in town. What the phone doesn't have is proper optical image stabilisation. That may sound like tech nonsense, but is pretty clever, using little motors to stabilise the sensor or lens to even out any micro-movements in your hands.
That's why the Xperia Z5 can really benefit from a Joby Gorillapod GripTight if you want to shoot at night. Gorilla pods are like normal tripods, except the legs are made of interlocking balls that can grip onto just about any object. Want to lock your phone onto a lamp post? No problem.
As phones don't have stand mount sockets, the GripTight has a grippy frame that holds onto the phone.
SanDisk Ultra 128GB microSD
£54.99/$53.99
Own an Xperia Z5 and want to get one over on friends who bought an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S6? One thing the Sony has that the others don't is a microSD card slot.
This lets you give your phone an elephant-like memory for a distinctly mouse-like price. You can now get a 128GB SanDisk Ultra fast microSD for around £50/$50, just a fraction of the upgrade price for other phone's 128GB models.
Don't need quite that much? 64GB cards can be snagged for under £20/$30 too. You really can turn the little guy into an epic movie and music jukebox on a shoestring.
Lindy MHL 3.0 to 4K HDMI Active Adapter
£24.90/$38
One of our phones' least appreciated features is that you can take what's on its screen and fling it over to your TV. You can get this kind of effect with a Chromecast, but with a wired connection you can be sure the feed is rock-solid.
It's all down to a little three-letter feature called MHL. This is something that is part of the microUSB socket on the Xperia Z5. And as it's jacked all the way up to MHL 3.0 with the Lindy adapter, it's theoretically capable of outputting at up to 4K resolution.
If you want a way to be able to play films stored on your phone on your TV, this is the most fool-proof way to do it.
Sony Smartwatch 3 SWR50
£109/$168
So you have a Sony phone, how about a Sony smartwatch too? The Sony SWR50 may not be the latest, greatest smartwatch around, but this Android Wear wrist gadget is both an awful lot cheaper than something like the Huawei Watch, and has an amazing bonus too.
This is one of just a few Android Wear watches to have integrated GPS, the connection that lets you pinpoint your location very accurately, wherever you are. If you're a runner, you want a watch with GPS. It means you can see where you've run on a map, and work out exactly how far you went.
The downside is that GPS takes the battery life from two days to about four hours. You'll need to work on your marathon time if you want it to last 26 miles without gasping its last (for this charge anyway) breath.
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless
£379/$499
Need wireless headphones and are willing to pay through the nose for them? You can't do much better than the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless. They are portable-style Bluetooth headphones that'll sound great paired up with a Sony Xperia Z5.
A stylish look, dead comfy leather pads and some of the best sound quality you'll hear in a Bluetooth headphone make them a great choice for, well, anyone.
The one eyebrow-raiser is the price. At £380/$499 they're not far off the price of a decent phone themselves.
