alright guys so my favorite phone in 2020 was the Sony Xperia 5 Mark II and now we
have the follow-up the Sony Xperia 5 Mark III now the competition is tougher this year from
both Sony themselves with a stronger 1 Mark III the phone I'm recording this video with
and also other phone manufacturers so i'm gonna let you know if this is still the phone series
to get first going over the specs because they're extremely important for this phone
now this is the most balanced flagship on the market with one exception the 1 Mark III the 5
Mark III has a headphone jack and micro SD card support both unicorn features in 2022
on the front it has a 6.1 inch 21:9 display at 120Hz it also has stereo speakers
and an 8MP camera neither of which results in an ugly notch or a cutout on the back it
has a triple camera setup including the standard telephoto and wide angle lens all at 12MP on the
inside it has a Snapdragon 888 with 8GB of RAM a 4500mAh battery and 128GB of internal storage
the design is familiar for Xperia fans it's water resistant and made of glass and metal at the
bottom it has USB-C on the side it has a camera key a fingerprint scanner which is also the power
a volume rocker a notification light and worth repeating a headphone jack
also as a bonus it ships with a charging adapter something very rare these days the main thing it's
missing that most other flagships have is wireless charging though the 1 Mark III does have that
the phone also supports 5G and is available for most major US carriers the 5 Mark III launches
today in black or green for $1000 in the US and as an added bonus comes with wireless earbuds
which retails for $200 and 43,200 Call of Duty mobile points which retails for $400 at a minimum
from the in-game store that's $600 in bundle bonuses now i'm going to discuss the price
more in a bit but for now i'll discuss how good the phone actually is so just based on the specs
there's already a few big upgrades here over last year's 5 Mark II so that includes a larger battery
and 5G support in the USA there's also of course the standard yearly upgrades here including the
upgraded Snapdragon 888 chipset while other phone manufacturers are taking away features such as
the headphone jack and micro SD card support and even a charging brick Sony is keeping them
these days not taking away features is actually a feature the design is almost exactly the same
as last year's 5 Mark II now the build is not as solid as the 1 Mark III which uses frosted glass
but it's still one of my favorite designs for any phone the display is of course super responsive
and the movie aspect ratio also works pretty well for this form factor so it's not 4K like the 1
Mark III but the resolution is still pretty solid given its size my only issue with the display is
it does not get that bright especially if you use it in direct sunlight the speakers don't
get that loud but they are balanced and therefore sound pretty great here's a very brief sound test
the phone is already running Android 12 and performance is smooth for everything
from daily tasks to gaming this is also one of my favorite UIs on any phone and besides
it occasionally getting a bit warm when doing a heavy task i have not had any issues with it
the fingerprint scanner which doubles as a power key is my favorite setup for any phone
so it's extremely accurate and just a very natural way to unlock your phone or lock it overall the
cameras are amongst the best on the market but there are a few issues so the front camera is
still only 8MP and video for it in the standard point-and-shoot app is capped at 1080P 30fps i
mostly shoot my content at 60fps so i'm not going to be using the front camera for this or the 1 III
across my YouTube channels besides of course this video the cameras on the back of course
do support 4K and 60fps but when you change to 60fps there is noticeable drop in quality
uh and that's especially true at night time it is worth noting that all phone cameras do tend
to get darker at higher frame rates though this still is not letting in as much light as some
other flagships those are all the negatives but that aside the cameras are pretty great overall
and are some of the most realistic shots you can get from a smartphone
being able to snap photos with the camera key and smoothly adjust to zoom with the volume rocker
is still a great feature that's unique to Sony phones for people who like messing around with the
settings there's also the Cinema Pro app which has the best manual controls for any phone i've used
just know that there is a learning curve for the app but you can of course use a standard
camera app which is very easy to use ever since i started this channel i've always stressed that
battery life is one of the most important features on the phone
and a few years ago i was not a fan of Sony phones when they had smaller batteries
the battery on a 5 Mark III though is excellent it's really impressive they were able to fit a
4500mAh battery in such a small form factor for reference the iPhone with the largest battery
is still smaller than this one you should have no problem getting through the end of the day with it
wireless charging would have been nice but if you want to have that then the larger 1 Mark
III does have it that said the 5 Mark III actually lasts longer than the 1 III but of course it has
a smaller screen and not as high a resolution speaking of the 1 Mark III i'm filming a full
comparison so in 2020 i thought the 5 Mark II was a better deal than the 1 Mark II for a number of
reasons but this year it's definitely much more complicated so battery aside i do think the 1 Mark
III is a better phone than the 5 Mark III but it mostly comes down to which size you prefer
and if you want to spend extra for the additional features of the 1 Mark III either way they're
both excellent phones but this year the price difference better represents the hardware gap
between them so in other words i don't think that the 5 Mark III is a steal relative to the 1 Mark
III the 5 Mark III is not a perfect phone but it's still the best compact phone I've used now that
leads me to my biggest problem with it this phone was announced nine months ago a full pregnancy
and it's just now coming out it's always of course more difficult to recommend a phone when you
assume a new one will be announced in a few months now i have zero knowledge about Sony's future
plans but just going by when they've historically announced their phones $1000 is also pretty steep
since the Pixel 6 is a few hundred dollars less but the bonuses do go for several hundred dollars
combined on the secondary market and that brings it to around the same price as the Pixel 6
they're the most valuable pre-order bonuses i've seen for a phone and they have to be factored into
the price alright so here's the bottom line now if you do not factor in the pre-order bonuses
so not including this stuff then i would not recommend it for $1000 so again guys the Pixel 6
$600 i do think this is a better phone than the Pixel 6 but it's not $400 better but when you
do factor in the additional stuff and of course you want all the features here you
want the headphone jack micro SD card support all that stuff when you factor this stuff in
then i would recommend it once again just don't be surprised if they announce a phone in April
uh again i have no knowledge about that but just taking the guess
alright guys thanks for watching and check out my comparison between this and the 1 Mark III