This is great stuff to brag about in advertising, and lots of people write about these things as if they understand them, but they really don't. You don't really need to know any of this to use the camera. You just move the focus box around and then tell the camera to focus and watch the magic.
The R5 has 1053 autofocus "zones" and 5940 AF "points". What exactly is a zone and a point in this context? We are already tangled up in confusion and terminology.
Some of these things just aren't clear at the level to which things are explained to the end user. I read that the 1053 "zones" (sometime called "points") are each full sensor phase detection points. If so, what exactly are the 5940 AF "points"?
While it doesn't answer these questions, the following article is interesting and has some details about autofocus sensors:
As near as I can tell at this time, there are 1053 physical AF detectors in the R5 camera. It is possible to position the focus algorithms at any of 5940 points, but these locations are just positions, and depending on the focus method chosen than can include a variable number of actual detectors. But some things I read say that I have this exactly backwards. And as I have said already, it doesn't matter in daily use.Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org