Sony Xperia Z5 improves overheating issue, even with controversial Snapdragon 810 processor

The Snapdragon 810 processor has been nothing short of controversial, as we’ve detailed at some length. All in all, it’s hard to recommend a smartphone with the overheating processor, seeing that LG said that the “initial batch” of Snapdragon 810 processors it had with the G Flex overheated, and then seeing the Xperia Z3 overheat and crash the camera app, in addition to the overheating complaints of customers. Qualcomm denied the overheating issue exists in a Forbes interview, telling Forbes that someone invented the claim to create some juicy tidbit of news. Qualcomm’s public interview, as staged as I believe it to be, has done nothing to stop manufacturers like OnePlus with its OnePlus 2, as well as HTC with its One M9, from utilizing it in their own smartphones.

As if this isn’t enough evidence against the Snapdragon 810, Sony’s new Xperia Z5 offers some additional evidence that the Snapdragon 810 is a huge cause for concern. Sony unveiled the Xperia Z5 along with the Xperia Z5 Compact and the Xperia Z5 Premium at last week’s IFA 2015 conference, and social media site Weibo has tore down the Xperia Z5 to see the inner components.

Interestingly enough, the Xperia Z5 has two heat pipes inside the smartphone instead of the one heat pipe that existed in the Xperia Z3. Both can be seen below.

The purpose of the two heat pipes in the Xperia Z5, as opposed to the Z3, has been to keep the processor cooler than normal. The Xperia Z5 runs the Snapdragon 810 processor, which means that Sony’s two heat pipes (a little over the top) has been done to keep the Snapdragon 810 from doing its normal overheating and app crashing routine. When a company installs a second heat pipe in a phone with a controversial but overheating processor, it just serves to display Sony’s own suspicions about the processor – as well as our own.

Sony joins LG in its claims about the Snapdragon 810, and OnePlus has promised that its smartphone would not overheat – a confirmation of OnePlus’s own suspicion (if not the company’s suspicions about consumer concern). Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has also issued warnings to Japanese customers, and we’d have to agree with the carrier. Even if a second heat pipe is added, it doesn’t change the suspicions about the processor any more than if someone placed a roof patch over a roof leak and claimed “the roof will not leak anymore.”

With that said, we cannot give confidence to any smartphone, including the Xperia Z5, Xperia Z5 Compact, or the Xperia Z5 Premium, that contains the overheating processor. We applaud Sony for trying to “fan the flame away,” but the Snapdragon 810 is defective. This is not a case of “don’t stick the stylus in the wrong way” Pengate, where the stylus can get stuck. This is a situation where the processor, on which the phone relies for operation, is overheating. Proceed to buy any phone with the Snapdragon 810 in it at your own risk.

Source