The build quality of the parts has been significantly improved, including a great EVF, the same grip as the A9 III, and the same screen as the A7R V.
The biggest surprise is the 42MP back-illuminated sensor, which bumps the pixel count up to the level of the A7R III. It doesn't have the same number of focus points as the A7R II, but it appears to be a brand-new sensor that still uses a low-pass filter. Test shots with the FE 50mm F1.4 GM show very little false color in the image, which is not consistent with the test results of the lens on the A7R IV. This is due to the low-pass filter.
The new software's AI focus detection is more accurate and also allows high frame rate AE/AF, more sensitive to moving objects, and you can feel that the focus performance is better than the A7R V and ZV-E1, but still not as good as the A9 III.
The high ISO performance is more in line with the A7 III, very strong and significantly better than the A7R V.
No improvement in continuous shooting. Sony has stagnated in this area for too long. The electronic shutter doesn't slow down continuous shooting, and the readout speeds are similar to those of full-frame video, but the electronic shutter is limited to 12-bit RAW and offers flash sync at 1/40s (FF), 1/60s (APS-C).
Unfortunately for the vast majority of videographers, the A7 V uses a higher resolution sensor and shares the video cropping modes of the A7R V, with only the differences: 4K/60p is supported in Super 35mm mode, 4K/60p full-frame crop mode and 4K/30p full frame mod are oversampled, and there is no crop for 8K video recording.
The new A7 V camera has a completely different logic to the Sony A1, Canon EOS R5 II, and Nikon Z8, with no pixel merging and no line-skipping sampling for 4K video. There is no crop-free full-frame 4K/60p.
The dynamic video range is by far the best on the Sony Alpha, and it is very close to the Sony BURANO's noise level in XAVC.