The first five things to do with your new Sony Xperia Z5

Sony's latest high end smartphone, the Xperia Z5 comes in three flavors but with a mostly common experience across them all.

Whether you're getting yourself a Z5, Z5 Compact or Z5 Premium, here's five things that you should do first with your new phone.

1. Make sure double tap to wake is off unless you're using a PIN code

Xperia Z5

Normally this is something we'd absolutely recommend you turn on, especially in this world of ever growing smartphones.

But here's the thing. On the Z5 it's way too sensitive. And that leads to all kinds of shenanigans going on inside your pocket. The butt dial is very much back with the Z5.

Unless you're going to keep your phone somewhere you're confident this won't be an issue or are going to use a PIN code or pattern lock, just make sure it's turned off. Naturally we'd always recommend securing your device, but likewise we know not everyone will do this.

To do so open up Settings > Display and scroll down to "Tap to wake up." Make sure the toggle is set to off and you're set.

2. Check your photo resolutions

Xperia Z4

The Xperia Z5 has a very tasty sounding 23MP rear camera but if you want to shoot at full resolution you'll need to check your settings first.

Our unit arrived set to shoot by default at 8MP. For most of the people most of the time this will be the setting to use. It's Sony's oversampling mode that'll give you the best results when using Superior Auto mode. So if you're a casual shooter definitely go for this one.

But if you're getting more serious and you want to take full advantage of that 23MP and the manual mode settings then you'll need to set it up first.

Open up the camera app, hit the three dots icon to open camera settings. On the first tab you'll see "Resolution" at the top. There aren't many to choose from but if you want the 23MP option this is where to enable it. Or you can have 20MP at 16:9 and a couple of 8MP oversampled options in 4:3 and 16:9.

Manual mode can be accessed by tapping the circular icon in the bottom right of the camera app and then you'll see a box labelled "Manual" along the top.

3. Get rid of apps you don't want

Xperia Z5

The Xperia Z5 isn't the most bloat ridden phone we've seen in recent times but it does still come loaded up with some stuff you might not want. For example, I'm an Xbox One owner, so the PlayStation stuff is pretty useless to me.

Fortunately, Sony isn't too strict on keeping the preloaded bloat on the phone. Open up the app drawer, hold your finger on one of the icons and you'll soon see a bunch of red crosses over apps you can delete.

Take your pick and reclaim some of your internal storage.

4. Get acquainted with the small apps

The small apps are exactly what they sound like. They're apps, and they're small. You can use them over the top of whatever else you're doing on the phone. And some of them could be quite useful. For example, if you're doing something that requires constant access to the calculator, maybe pop out the small app instead of being glued to the main app.

You can drag small apps around and resize them to your liking on the display. Here's a list of what you've got to choose from:

  • Active Clip (screenshots)
  • Chrome bookmarks
  • Browser
  • Calculator
  • Calendar
  • Gmail
  • Music player
  • Timer
  • Touch block (cancel unintended touches, example in wet conditions)

To select one hit the square task switching button and then the "^" icon on the bar at the bottom of the display. If there are apps you'll use frequently, hold and drag them to the favorites bar (shown above) for quicker access.

5. Consider a microSD card for photos and video

Xperia Z5

The Xperia Z5 comes with a healthy 32GB of internal storage but with a 23MP camera that's capable of shooting 4K video you could soon fill that up without realising. 4K video isn't necessarily something we'd recommend using the Z5 for but nevertheless, it's a feature, so folks will no doubt use it. Especially on the Z5 Premium where you can actually watch that 4K video.

Fortunately you can stick a microSD card in the Z5. And that means you can expand it by another 200GB in the current market. The microSD shares a slot with the nano SIM card behind the somewhat flimsy door on the left hand side of the phone.

Setting up your camera to store to the microSD card is a doddle. Open up the camera app, go into the settings by tapping the three dots icon and then the tab with the cog on it. Then scroll down to "Data storage" and select "SD card."

So, that's just a short list of a few things we'd recommend doing when you first get your new Xperia Z5. If you've got any of your own to share hit the comments below!

Richard Devine
26 Comments
  • 1. Download Google now launcher/Nova Launcher or the like 2. Realise you should've bought a Nexus 3. Sell Xperia Z5 for more than you paid for it 4. Buy a Nexus Device 5. Watch people rage about this comment Posted via the Android Central App on my Nexus 5 M 6.0
  • I've had a nexus device, while it is very fluid, it did have a slew of bugs and, for my taste, missed a lot of things that should come with the phone right off the bat. While I think a Nexus is a fantastic phone, I'd MUCH rather get an LG or Sony phone than a Nexus due to it having the stuff I WANT and NEED right away. Not to mention, the superb optics found on both the G4 and Z5. So... yeah... A nexus isn't for everyone! Just saying...
  • The Z5 deserves a look given its specs, the Nexus phones are far from being world beaters so looking at other products is no big deal. Plus any phone that I could buy and sell for more than I paid for it is win-win.
  • Thanks but, no thanks. You can keep your uuuuugly cheap Chinese phone. They're all yours! Posted via the Android Central App
  • And what phone do you know doesn't come from china? LOL
  • By Chinese phone he means developed by Chinese companies. Sony does their R&D and component manufacturing in Japan. Some cheap parts like the plastic and metal are made in China though and the phone is assembled in China. That also means Xperia phones don't come from China.
  • I will take sony's premium feel over LG or Motorola cheap feel any day. My LG g pad is the worst piece of crap ever but my xperia z3 tablet is like holding heaven. Posted via the Android Central App
  • Well they're also completely different price ranges.
  • 649.00 on amazon wasn't that the price for the nexus 6 when released? Posted via the Android Central App
  • In my humble opinion, Sony makes a better looking phone than most. As far as I know, most phones now are made in China, at least in part.
  • Don't know if you have tried xperia phones before or not, but i am a nexus fan and i can say that the xperia phones are pretty close to vanilla and are very smooth. Not to mention they have more features and are water resistant. And obviously you know some people will rage about this comment because selling the z5 for a nexus to most people is a downgrade. But it's what you like that counts.
  • Another asshat.
  • It was all jokes guys. While I will forever be a Nexus user, I can appreciate lots of other phone companies and their devices, I've used Xperia s and they are quite nice. Just not for me! Posted via the Android Central App on my Nexus 5 M 6.0
  • As disappointed as I was with the Z5 series, I would still take it any day over one of the crappy horrible looking Nexus devices with that horrible stock Android on it. So, do each his own ;)
  • And also while you are at it, turn off all the animation in the developer settings... Make things alot smoother,... Turn off the NFC if you are not using and the iritating tab clicks in the sound & notification settings...
  • The bezels on this phone are hugeee otherwise its a nice phone Posted via the Android Central App
  • The bezels are no bigger on this phone than most phones on the market. You do realise that all that black is on screen buttons right?
  • Well, compare it to the now inexpensive s6, which, judging from reviews, is pretty much just as fast. s6 is physically smaller and has more screen realestate. The s6 camera is still better and there's no denying that the AMOLED screen looks nicer. I guess it comes down to SD cards and waterproofing.
  • This phone will get alot more updates and run alot smoother than the s6 and is built far better than the s6 Posted via the Android Central App
  • On my Z3 the "small app" section also give the option to create one from a widget. So picking something like Twitter actually gives you a floating app for Twitter. Which is kind of impressive, but not the most useful thing on a phone. In my opinion at least =)
  • Where and when do these arrive? Hopefully Sprint has them Posted via Android Central App
  • You can buy them on Amazon.
  • I LOVE Xperia phones. I switched to them elusively as my daily drivers a couple years ago. They're beautiful, sleek UI, show the typical Japanese attention to precision engineered devices both in software and hardware. But this year I'm all-in for the Nexus 6p which impresses the hell out of me. The Z5 would easily come in as my second choice though by a very wide margin.
  • I'm not sure I would agree with point 1. Yes, it's a bit over sensitive HOWEVER you might want to first check if you don't have glove mode on.
    If even so the phone turns on, by all means shut that off. I personally can't, though. I'm way too used to double tap to wake to be able to actually get rid of it. And what is worse, I've quickly accustomed myself with double tap to turn off on the G4 which now has me trying to double tap the Z3C screen to turn it off. I do recommend a microSD though. On ANY phone that has it. And I also recommend that people check out the catalogue of Xperia Themes, specially if you want to tone down Lollipop's horrible colour palette. Even though on Lollipop is a lot weaker in terms of customization than it was on KitKat, it will still make a ton of difference.
  • Good phone but still thermal throttles under heavy rendering/gaming/loads/anything else that uses lots of gpu and cpu.....
  • And battery life sucks....unless it's standby