2019 was a strong year for Sony hardware. The Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 showed off a new skinny form factor, a bold new design which still echoed the hard-edged rectangular DNA of classic Xperias. I was very taken with this approach in my X5 review.

The other half of the phone review equation though, how well has the manufacturer updated the software for the phone?

Pretty darn well.

Sony is a very quiet manufacturer, especially in North America. I wouldn’t blame any consumers for being unaware of the phones, and the fact that Sony software support is surprisingly good.

I’m always happy to trot out my Xperia XZ1 Compact from 2017. The phone was updated to Android 9 in 2018, and while it hasn’t received Android 10, it’s still getting bug fixes and security patches today. Sony has delivered over two years of support so far.

Similarly, the Xperia 1 and 5 were recently updated to Android 10. Sony fell behind most of the OnePlus 7 phones, but was ahead of Samsung, LG, and other premium manufacturers.

Sony’s UI strategy is fairly conservative. Xperias use a mostly stock layout with a handful of small customizations to icons and a few standalone Sony apps and services. The 2019 Xperias add a side navigation panel to help with the taller form factor.

Numerous articles have been written on the new features in Android 10, but the most immediately visible is the system wide Dark Mode. Sony moved to OLED displays for this generation of premium phones, and those screens are put to great use with a dark theme. The phones already look like the monolith from 2001. A dark theme just reinforces that angular design.

The main practical consideration for the Xperias, how do the phones handle gestures around Sony’s custom navigation panel?

Android 10 introduced a side-swipe to replace the back button. Sony’s side panel uses a double tap on the edge of the display to open shortcuts and controls.

My first day using this combination was a little frustrating.

If I missed the swipe, I’d often open another app or interact with something in an app, like accidentally clicking a link in my browser. Double tapping the edge of the screen, I was almost equally as likely to accidentally mimic the back swipe or open an app as I was to open the nav panel.

It took a couple days of casual use to differentiate these actions. Whenever we change something like a navigation action, it’s unfamiliar, and we need a little time to retrain that muscle memory. On day one, each gesture was a jarringly deliberate action. A couple days later, I think I have a good feel for these actions.

I’m still not the biggest fan of the back button side-swipe, but the gesture makes more sense on these increasingly taller phones. Sony screens at 21:9 and other manufacturers pushing to 20:9, the reach from the top of the screen to the bottom navigation dock is getting wider and wider. I still don’t think Android handles gestures as well as a direct button tap, but we at least don’t have to move the phone around in our hands as often for basic navigation.

The Sony Cinema Pro camera app gets some fantastic new features.

The same great controls remain for shutter speed, white balance, and focal length across all three sensors. The Xperia 5 showed off a new rack-focus option, allowing you to smoothly transition from one focus point to another over a set amount of time.

Users can choose different options for frame guidelines. The app natively shoots 21:9, but you can frame for 16:9 to make sure you get the look you want.

Audio controls were easier to use in this update, and there’s a new focus guide to help you snap on to your subject.

And there’s a new level to help with positioning the phone. A tiny little green guide in the viewfinder, but super easy to reference while shooting.

Sony remains one of the top options for shooting video, and offering up nearly complete professional control over the content being shot. My one request moving forward would be focus peaking, to help make sure we’re locking on our subject correctly.

Performance Stays Snappy…

Lastly, Android 10 seems to have helped ironed out some of the performance deficits we saw in Android 9. The Xperias this year were capable performers, if falling just outside the top tier of speedy phones using the top Qualcomm chipsets.

Video rendering stayed almost exactly the same from Android 9 to 10. Both PowerDirector and KineMaster posted almost exactly the same numbers, differences well within margin of error. Rendering times just behind the OnePlus 7T

Video stabilization however saw massive improvements. Smoothing out a one-minute clip of UHD video, the Xperia 5 finished in 92 seconds on Android 9. Android 10 completed the same task in 53 seconds. That puts the Xperia ahead of the Galaxy S10, and just a second behind the Pixel 4.

I’ve just started using a new RAR compression test, and I’m going back to re-test phones to see how they compare. I’ve taken every top single from 1960 to 1969 (1,017 MP3 files weighing in at 3.22GB), and we smash them all together to make one RAR file. I use RAR because RAR Labs makes a native app for Android which compares well against Windows 10 compression tests.

A Pixel 4XL completes this task in 5:03. The Xperia 5 squeaked by in 4:55. By comparison, my Windows laptop with an 8th Gen Core i7 finished up in 4:25. A modern premium phone is only falling behind a $1000 laptop by around a 10-12% deficit. That’s terrific performance.

Lastly, Geekbench does show a tiny improvement. Single-core performance hasn’t changed, but there’s a small but repeatable lift to multi-core scores.

The Xperia 5 is a fun phone to revisit.

We should all be on the look out for differentiating features. Sony’s form factor and display are a unique twist on the standard Android slab. The smartphone division is drawing terrific inspiration from the Sony Camera team. And thankfully, Sony remains one of the better options for timely software support.

That’s a good combination for folks shopping a competitive premium handset.