There are a number of great phablets available in the market but this year, two of the best are the Galaxy Note 5 from Samsung and the Xperia Z5 Premium from Sony. Here is how the two devices compare.

Design

The Note 5 is the better looking device between the two, even though it looks pretty similar to its competitor. It comes with a metal frame and polished Gorilla Glass 4 on its front, as well as on its back panel, which is slightly curved. It also has a redesigned S Pen Stylus which can be easily clicked to eject it from the body. Furthermore, the new stylus can now even take notes on the screen even when the device is turned off. The Note 5 has a fingerprint scanner and it comes in four colors, black, white, silver and gold. As for the Xperia Z5 Premium, it also has a metal frame with nylon protective covering on its corners. Just like the Note 5, it has a fingerprint scanner but it is integrated into the power button which is located on its side. There is glass on the front and back of the device and it has a glossy finish which gives the device a good look. As for colors, the device has three options, chrome, gold and black. It comes with an IP68 certificaiton, which means it is waterproof and can be submerged in up to 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes.

Display

This category is where the device from Sony sprints ahead as it has a 4K IPS LCD screen measuring 5.5 inches with a resolution of 2160 x 3840 pixels and a density of 806 pixels per inch. The display also has TRILUMINOS technology to enhance colors and the X-Reality Engine which upscales lower resolution images and photos to 4K quality. As for the Note 5, its Super AMOLED screen is slightly bigger at 5.7 inches but it only has a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and a density of 518 pixels per inch.

Specs

Both these devices have the latest hardware but the Note 5 is faster as it has the Exynos 7420 chipset, coupled with an octa-core CPU comprised of four cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and four clocked at 2.1 GHz along with a Mali-T760MP8 GPU. In the Xperia Z5 Premium is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset, coupled with an octa-core CPU comprised of four cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and four clocked at 2 GHz along with an Adreno 430 GPU.

Memory

There is no memory slot on the Galaxy Note 5, therefore external storage cannot be added. The Xperia Z5 Premium has a slot that supports up to 200 GB of external storage. As for RAM, the Note 5 has 4 GB onboard while the Xperia Z5 Premium has 3 GB.

Camera

The Xperia Z5 Premium has a 23-megapixel camera with 5x zoom and a 0.03 second hybrid autofocus. The Note 5 has a 16-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization.

Price

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has a price tag of $249.99 with a two-year contract while the official price tag of the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium has not yet been revealed. However, it is expected to cost around $910 without a contract.