Sony Xperia Z5 Premium review: Premium Definition

Performance

Specs-wise, the Xperia Z5 Premium is a true flagship, no doubt about it. It runs on a Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 SoC, which is still the chip manufacturer's top offer, at least until the 820 enters mass production along. It has more than enough power to spare, but also happens to be the exact same hardware involved in the Z3+ overheating fiasco.

Whether it was Sony's fault or a faulty chipset batch doesn't really matter, as, in the end of the day, the Z3+ did, for a fact, overheat quite badly. This bad reputation quickly started dragging down Sony mobile's fortunes and looked like a primary motivator for the quick release of the Z5 family. This did, effectively, push the flagship issue under the rug, but we were happy to report the Xperia Z5 did fine. Unfortunately we have to report that the Z5 Premium still has some issues in this respect.

While we didn't experience any overheating malfunction and Sony has really gone the extra length to ensure the Z5 series handles heat diligently by employing a dual heat-pipe cooling system and quite a bit of high-efficiency thermal paste, the Z5 Premium heats up like a champ and quite fast at that.

Regardless whether we are copying files to the PC, running a single benchmark, or watching a video - the Z5 Premium gets unpleasantly hot in its upper part. It won't overheat, but we noticed considerable performance drop in some of the benchmarks (up to 30%) and we witnessed forced brightness lowering in order to avoid overheating.

The Snapdragon 810 chip, it comes with eight-core processor (Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2 GHz Cortex-A57), which is backed up by an Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expendable storage.

First up, we have the raw CPU performance test with GeekBench 3 and this is where the eight cores get to shine. The Z5 Premium is performing up to par with other Snapdragon 810 devices. It fact, Sony seem to have done a truly terrific job in utilizing the raw CPU power to the fullest extent, outshined slightly only by the OnePlus 2, which has the same chipset. The S810 processor is no match for the Exynos 7420 chip powering the Galaxy S6 edge+ and the Meizu Pro 5 but it's a good performer anyway.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Meizu Pro 5
  5578
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  5158
• OnePlus 2
  4429
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  4413
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  4194
• Sony Xperia Z5
  4017
• HTC One M9
  3761
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• LG G4
  3522
• BlackBerry Priv
  2963

AnTuTu is a compound benchmark, which also takes into account RAM and GPU performance. The Z5 Premium does great here, very close to the Galaxy S6 edge+ as a top performer. It definitely blows all of the S810 competition out of the water.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Meizu Pro 5
  74655
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  68324
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  62652
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  58582
• HTC One M9
  51427
• Sony Xperia Z5
  50611
• LG G4
  48693
• LG G Flex2
  47680
• OnePlus 2
  47207
• BlackBerry Priv
  45725

Basemark OS II 2.0 is an all-round benchmark. It gives an overall score along with single, multi-core performance, math performance and more. Once again, the Z5 Premium shines, especially in the single-core department. It actually leaves behind all of its Snapdragon 810-powered rivals in the overall score, which is impressive. Multi-tasking, however, seems to be a bit lacking, which was also the case with the Z5. However, it is nothing serious, nor is it directly conclusive of real life performance. Our experience with the unit showed fluid performance without exception.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  2261
• Meizu Pro 5
  1837
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  1789
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  1687
• OnePlus 2
  1622
• Sony Xperia Z5
  1482
• BlackBerry Priv
  1393
• HTC One M9
  1365

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  6498
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  6205
• Meizu Pro 5
  5760
• LG G Flex2
  5597
• OnePlus 2
  5301
• HTC One M9
  4688
• BlackBerry Priv
  3941
• Sony Xperia Z5
  1239

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  27511
• Meizu Pro 5
  21416
• LG G Flex2
  18856
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  18336
• HTC One M9
  18047
• OnePlus 2
  16798
• BlackBerry Priv
  11388
• Sony Xperia Z5
  5733

Moving on to pure graphics tests and namely GFX Bench. The Adreno 430 GPU inside the Snapdragon 810 chip is pretty powerful and offers nice graphics performance. The Z5 Premium is more than capable of handling even the most demanding Android games, though as we already made it clear, those don't run in 4K resolution.

The Xperia Z5 Premium uses native 4K resolution only for the gallery content and 4K video playback. Seems like a wise choice as the GPU would probably be strained quite a lot, leading to overheating and poor battery life.

According to the offscreen and onscreen 1080p tests by GFX Bench - the Xperia Z5 Premium is a match for the Z5, and beats all the rest of the devices we've tested so far.

So, the raw performance of the Adreno 430 within the Z5 Premium is indeed top-notch.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  39.5
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  26
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  25
• Meizu Pro 5
  25
• Sony Xperia Z5
  24
• HTC One M9
  23
• LG G Flex2
  22
• OnePlus 2
  22
• LG G4 (final)
  15
• BlackBerry Priv
  12

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z5
  18
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  18
• OnePlus 2
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• Meizu Pro 5
  14
• LG G4 (final)
  9.9
• BlackBerry Priv
  7.8

When it comes to onscreen tests, just don't forget Sony Z5 Premium is doing those at 1080p resolution as well.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  38.6
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  27
• Sony Xperia Z5
  25
• Meizu Pro 5
  25
• HTC One M9
  24
• LG G Flex2
  22
• OnePlus 2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• LG G4 (final)
  9.4
• BlackBerry Priv
  7.6

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z5
  19
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  19
• OnePlus 2
  16
• Meizu Pro 5
  14
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  6.6
• LG G4 (final)
  5.6
• BlackBerry Priv
  5.4

The BaseMark X GPU test also puts the Z5 Premium ahead of the competition, while the new BaseMark ES 3.1 gives it a very good score, but below the iPhone's.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  26333
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  24281
• Sony Xperia Z5
  23923
• OnePlus 2
  21937
• Meizu Pro 5
  20038
• HTC One M9
  19848
• LG G Flex2
  19360
• BlackBerry Priv
  15072

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  916
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  482
• Meizu Pro 5
  409
• HTC One M9
  409
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  348

In terms of browsing, the Xperia Z5 offers a splendid online experience. BrowserMark definitely backs up our statement, but the all JavaScript Kraken benchmark isn't quite so favorable. Naturally, we would be quick to point a finger at the built-in browser, but in the case of Sony, that is Chrome, so other forces must be at play here.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  1731
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  3767
• Meizu Pro 5
  3907
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  4226
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• LG G4 (final)
  4639
• HTC One M9
  5500
• Sony Xperia Z5
  5635
• BlackBerry Priv
  6761
• OnePlus 2
  6808

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  2591
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  2305
• Sony Xperia Z5
  2303
• LG G Flex2
  2086
• OnePlus 2
  2055
• LG G4 (final)
  1992
• BlackBerry Priv
  1683
• HTC One M9
  1681
• Meizu Pro 5
  1070

Overall, The Z5 Premium performance isn't really all that different from the Z5's.The smartphone is a true powerhouse and a worthy flagship in any sense of the word although it comes at the expense of some unpleasant hot spots in the upper part of the back.