Here's the Xperia 5, a more compact flagship bundled with Sony's AirPods alternative

If you are wondering why, one look at the size would tell you. With the Xperia 5, Sony is possibly trying to resurrect its popular Compact line of flagship handsets of yesteryear. Well, we wouldn't call a 6.1-incher exactly small, but these are the times, and thanks to the elongated aspect ratio, it really fits in the palm of your hand as Sony promises.

The 6.1" FHD+ Xperia 5 screen is not what one would have considered compact in the days of the 5" or even 4.6" Xperia Compact phones of yesteryear but we are in the era of loving memory when it comes to small-screen phones anyway. 

The 5 has the same unorthodox 21:9 CinemaWide display aspect as the Xperia 1, meaning that it is quite the tall and narrow handset considering the screen diagonal. This also makes it very easy to grasp and operate with one hand due to the narrower footprint, so with these preconditions the phone could be called a compact flagship indeed, and those are few and far between in 2019.

Despite the high IP68 level of water-resistance certification, Sony still managed to equip the Xperia 5 with Dolby Atmos-laden stereo speakers (cough, P30 Pro, cough) for a true cinematic experience on the large 21:9 display. Sony also gave a few easy ways to enter split screen functionality so you can take better advantage of that tall and narrow panel.

Now off to the specs that make the Xperia 5 a true flagship phone no matter even if you take into account the 1080p display resolution. We are actually happy that Sony didn't go all out with a Quad HD or 4K display on the 5, as its last few Xperias suffered badly in battery life due to the very high pixel count coupled with batteries of average size. '

The Xperia 5 rights those wrongs and still comes equipped with the latest high-end Snapdragon 855 processor and decent 6GB of  RAM plus 128GB storage and a memory card slot. The 3140 mAh battery should suffice for a day out of the handset given the FHD+ resolution of the screen, so we have little to complain about in the specs department.

In addition, Sony has a nice surprise for us in the form of a full DualShock 4 gamepad support, exclusive for the Xperia 1 and 5. While you can connect to your PlayStation 4 controller via Bluetooth on any modern Android, mapping the controller to stroll the interface or play games will be a thing of the future once Android 10 lands for your device. Sony's flagship Xperia can use DualShock 4 controllers out of the box, sweet!

This flagship-grade phone has a triple camera set again, just like on the Xperia 1, just tucked in the upper left corner instead of the middle. The three options you are provided with are again super-wide-angle, regular, and telephoto lens for your various shooting needs. Sony boasts about its new BIONZ X algorithm, which allows the Xperia 1's Eye camera to focus super-accurately, super-fast, and even keep said focus as you take a burst photo of 10 frames per second.

All three sensors have a 12 MP resolution, with its main camera having large 1.4 micron pixels and a wide lens aperture of F1.6. On paper, this all allows for more light to enter the sensor, making for better low-light photography.

Aspiring cinematographers can also have some fun with the new Cinema Pro feature, which sports color management presets and allows you to shoot in 4K HDR at FPS in the wide 21:9 format. The shot is steadied through a hybrid system of optical and digital stabilization. We were pleasantly surprised by the image quality when we reviewed the Xperia 1, so we expect no less from the 5.

The Sony Xperia 5 will be released in October in black, blue, white and magenta, and in select markets it will be bundled with Sony's award-winning true wireless earphones, the WF1000-XM3 set. The price? Mum's the word on that. Any takers?