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Battery life
- Impressive whole day battery life, even for heavy users
- Will last a day and a half with careful usage
While Sony has dropped the battery size on the Xperia Z5, for the Xperia Z5 Compact it has increased it from 2,600mAh on the Z3 Compact to 2,700mAh. The Z3 Compact had an impressive battery life already, and its successor doesn't disappoint.
I'm a heavy user – watching video, messaging over 4G and streaming music – but I was still often going to bed with charge left on the phone. Most flagship phones this year have died before the end of the day (including the Xperia Z5), so this is impressive.
A two day charge isn't possible though. With connectivity on but minimal use, it only made it until about 1pm the next day.
In our video test (where we run a 90 minute video with full connectivity options switched on and the screen at full brightness) it came out with 79% leftover. That's exactly the same score as the Xperia Z3 Compact, which is slightly mystifying given the larger cell. I'd expect it to be capable of more.
But compare it to other flagship devices this year and you'll find that nothing approaches it. The Xperia Z5 went through the same test and came out with 75% of its battery left, although it does have a 1080p 5.2-inch screen to power.
I ran the video again with 50% screen brightness on and the Z5 Compact came out with 84% battery. That's much closer to the Xperia Z5's score of 82% on that test.
When gaming, the phone has impressive stamina. After an hour of playing with the screen on full brightness and all connectivity options going, it came out the with 72% battery.
That's better than the Xperia Z5 by some way, which lost 41% of its charge in an hour of gaming. However, no Sony phone can match what Samsung is offering with the Galaxy S6, which can manage up to five hours of play time.
Sony hasn't included any wireless charging features in the Xperia Z5 range. As with the omission of USB-C, this isn't an essential feature, but it is one more way in which Sony could have set the future standard and hasn't.
Qi wireless charging technology features a lot in the big handsets this year, and Ikea has even made a desk incorporating the technology, so full mainstream acceptance must be imminent.
