Side-mounted fingerprint sensor

Sony has adopted a novel fingerprint sensor on the side of all three phones. It works with partial prints, obviously, but you also don't need to cover the entire pad - about 2/3 will suffice. It performed flawlessly in terms of recognition and unlocked on the first try throughout the time we spent with the devices. That's only a few hours though, and it's unclear how it will react in tricky conditions - sweaty/dirty fingers or under water.

What we're not fans of, is the fact that you need to wake the smartphone up, before it can take a reading. You can't just place your finger on the button and have it unlock the phone directly like you can on the OnePlus 2. It could be a battery endurance consideration, perhaps an always-on sensor would take too big of a toll. In all fairness, both Apple and Samsung's implementations follows the same press-then-scan logic.



Fingerprint sensors on the Z5, Z5 Compact, and Z5 Premium

Another niggle is that with the power button/fingerprint sensor recessed into the frame, it's quite difficult to press. We'd reckon that it's an issue related to our pre-production hardware as both our Z5 Premium and Z5 Compact fare better that the plain Z5 in this respect with a more solid clicking action.

Synthetic benchmarks

All three smartphones are powered by the same Snapdragon 810 chipset. We can already hear the comments section complain why it's not the new 820 or the 808. One possible explanation is that the 808 comes with an inferior GPU that would have choked on the 4K resolution of the Premium, while the 820 is, for all we know, simply not ready for mass release.

It is what it is, and the S810 is Qualcomm's reigning high-end solution and the obvious choice for a flagship (or an entire family of three).

While we did have all three with us, the state of the Premium's software was such that it didn't allows to run any benchmarks. As for the other two, just keep in mind we're tested pre-production units running non-final software. The performance may (or, likely, will) change by the time the devices are ready to hit the shelves. Also, the phones rejected to install some of the usual benchmarks, so here's what we managed to run.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

OnePlus 2

1942

Xperia Z5 Compact (pre-production)

1904

Xperia Z5 (pre-production)

1851

Samsung Galaxy S6

1769

ZTE Axon Pro

1565

HTC One M9

1526

Sony Xperia Z3+ final

1410

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact

1167

Meizu MX5

1163

Sony Xperia Z3

1109

Basemark X

Higher is better

Samsung Galaxy S6

27169

Xperia Z5 (pre-production)

24886

Xperia Z5 Compact (pre-production)

23458

ZTE Axon Pro

22928

OnePlus 2

21937

Sony Xperia Z3+ final

20767

HTC One M9

19848

Sony Xperia Z3

12637

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact

12080

Meizu MX5

10403

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

Xperia Z5 Compact (pre-production)

25

ZTE Axon Pro

25

Samsung Galaxy S6

24

Xperia Z5 (pre-production)

24

HTC One M9

23

OnePlus 2

22

Sony Xperia Z3+ final

21

LG G4 (final)

15

Sony Xperia Z3

12

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact

11.8

Meizu MX5

10

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

Xperia Z5 Compact (pre-production)

35

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact

25.4

Xperia Z5 (pre-production)

25

HTC One M9

24

OnePlus 2

22

Sony Xperia Z3+ final

21

ZTE Axon Pro

15

Samsung Galaxy S6

14

Sony Xperia Z3

12.7

Meizu MX5

9.5

LG G4 (final)

9.4

Both smartphones exhibit great overall performance, as indicated by the all-round Basemark OS II benchmark. The graphics department posts great numbers too, nearly up there with the Samsung Galaxy S6 in Basemark X.

GFXBench also places the Z5s towards the top of the crop. The Z5 Compact breezes through the onscreen Manhattan test with a 35fps score, favored by its 720p resolution - after all it's the only device with an HD screen, powered by the S810 and Adreno 430. Yes, we know that subjecting the Premium to this, would have a lot more fun, but tough luck this time.