Sony Xperia 5 IV finally adds wireless charging, brighter display

Sony Mobile has released the latest version of its compact flagship phone, the Sony Xperia 5 IV.

Following the pattern of previous years, the Xperia 5 IV takes the power of the flagship Xperia 1 model and packs it into a smaller body.

The Xperia 5 IV is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 like the Xperia 1 IV, but that sets it at a slight disadvantage as many more recent phones have adopted the 8+ Gen 1, the newer iteration of that hardware. That includes the Asus Zenfone 9, a natural rival to Sony’s device.

Sony also sticks to its 21:9 display format, but it has boosted the brightness of this display. It still carries a full HD+ resolution, with 120Hz refresh rate and a processing boost provided by Sony’s X1 Mobile chip, designed to make your video content look better.

There’s now a 5000mAh battery in this device, which is impressive, along with the addition of wireless charging for the first time, which will surely be a popular addition to this phone.

There are new speakers built into the frame for a bigger sound, while this little phone also retains the 3.5mm headphone socket, which Sony says is to support those who want to stick to a pair of great wired headphones.

There’s lots of audio support as you’d expect, including LDAC for high-fidelity wireless audio, along with 360 Reality Audio and upmixing to make standard music sound more immersive.

As you’d expect the design hasn’t moved on much and it still carries the IP65/68 rating that you expect from a premium Sony device.

Sony is of course talking up the camera, but this is one area where it’s not the same as the Xperia 1 IV – because there’s no variable zoom here, instead you have a standard optical telephoto.

There’s a trio of 12-megapixel cameras on the back offering main (24mm), ultrawide (16mm) and telephoto (60mm), sticking very much to Sony’s tried and tested camera formula that aims to replicate much of the Sony alpha camera experience.

All the rear cameras can capture 4K 120fps video, there’s eye-tracking autofocus to keep the subject sharp (which works on both humans and animals) as well as a range of shake reduction technologies to keep your captures steady.

There’s also now a 12-megapixel sensor for the front camera, to grab those selfies.

Sony says that you’ll get 3-years of security updates and we’re waiting to confirm how many Android OS updates you’ll get – we suspect might only be two, but that’s not concrete.

The Sony Xperia 5 IV will launch at £949 / €1049 and it will be available to order from late-September.

We’re expecting a pre-order bundle to include the LinkBuds S.