Sony Device Data Update

Xperia Z5 Compact & new browser property

This week our focus crosses the East China Sea to look at one of Japan's most prestigious multinational companies. Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets and is ranked 116th on the 2015 list of Fortune Global 500. Sony is among the top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders and the fourth-largest television manufacturer in the world. The Sony name is derived from sonus, the Latin word for sound and the company's current slogan is BE MOVED whilst former slogans were make.believe and like.no.other. Originally founded after the wake of World War II, next year will mark Sony's 70th anniversary.

New Browser Property: Meter

Today we added a new browser property for both our Premium and Enterprise customers. The new property is named 'Meter' and the following description applies. - “Indicates if the browser supports meter element that represents a scalar measurement within a known range or fractional value. It doesn't indicate if the browser supports the progress bar indication. For this purpose, the progress property should be used.”

Sony Xperia Z5 Compact

Whilst Sony's full size flagship model has been updated on a near bi-yearly basis since February 2013 the smaller compact version has been updated just once a year. The first compact series was the Z1, followed by the Z3, with the Z2 and Z4 generations being skipped. Let us take a look at the latest little brother, the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact. The newest compact model comes with a 4.6 inch screen, up 0.3 inches since the first inception of the compact. Sony has opted to stay with the same IPS panel with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution which equates to a pixel density of 323, 18 less than the original Z1 Compact. Naturally there is also an IP68 rating, something that Sony has pioneered and continues to include on higher end models.

Internally the Xperia Z5 Compact has been equipped with one of Qualcomm's latest chipsets, the MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 - keeping up the compact's signature of flagship specifications in a smaller form factor, which even still today no other manufacturer has been able to emulate. The chipset is paired with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage with room for a further 200GB via MicroSD. Whilst the internal storage has doubled since the original model, the amount of RAM has not changed; with the original Z1 Compact being almost two years old, it would have been nice to have seen 3GB RAM. This is one area where the Z5 Compact lags behind full size flagships. Battery wise, there is a 2700mAh unit, enough for 520h of standby and almost 15h of talk time.

Both the Z1 and Z3 Compacts used the same 21.7MP Sony Exmoor camera; this time around there is a whole new 23MP rear camera with Phase Detection autofocus and a 5MP front camera, up from the previous models 2.2MP, both welcome improvements. Other features include ANT+ support, Active noise cancellation, Bluetooth 4.1 with A2DP and apt-X, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS and Beidou navigation, 4G LTE on a single Nano SIM and a fingerprint sensor - one of the first Sony models to come with this. The Sony Xperia Z5 Compact runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and has a planned upgrade to 6.0 Marshmallow and will be available later this month for approximately $800.

Sony Xperia M5

Not long ago we saw the Xperia M4 Aqua. Now Sony have dropped the Aqua moniker from the 'M' line of smartphones to bring us the new Sony Xperia M5. Don't let the name change fool you, the Xperia M5 has the same IP68 certification for dust resistance and water proofing, able to withstand submersion in 1.5 meters of water for up to half an hour. Another thing the M4 and M5 have in common is the wide range of variants, both have a Dual SIM option as well as plenty of regional editions. The overall shape, size and look are virtually the same, both being built around a 5.0-inch screen. Despite the visual similarities, the M5 has many upgrades, the first being that the screen resolution has been bumped from 720p up to 1080p FullHD.

Perhaps the biggest change is with the hardware inside the device. Sony made a choice to drop the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset in favour of MediaTek's top of the line Helio X10 MT6795. As such you get an octa-core 2.0GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, PowerVR G6200 GPU, 3GB RAM and 16GB of expandable internal storage. With these specifications the Xperia M5 is attempting to push flagship performance, whilst still trying to stay out of the flagship price ranges. Powering the smartphone is a 2600mAh non-removable battery which Sony claim will last for over 62 hours of music playback, 671 hours in standby or a bit more than 12 hours of talk time.

The Xperia M5 is quite feature packed for what is essentially still a mid-range smartphone. Photography buffs will love the 21.5MP rear camera with 2160p@30fps video and Hybrid Phase Detection autofocus and the 13MP front-facing camera with 1080p@30fps video. For your money you'll also get LTE Cat.4, Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, A-GPS/GLONASS receiver, Bluetooth v4.1, FM radio with RDS, USB host and active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic. The M5 currently costs a good $100 more than the M4 Aqua, at a little over $400 and will run Android 5.0 Lollipop with a confirmed upgrade path to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Note that the M5 will initially have limited availability so if you are interested, now is the time to claim your own.

Profiles and Combinations Update

Last week we added 157 new devices to our database
New software versions recently added to our database:
- Chrome OS 48.0
- Mac OS X 10.12
- iOS 9.1.1
- iOS 9.2
The current number of Premium profile combinations in our database is 276,185.
The current number of Enterprise profile combinations in our database is 340,550.