Gadgetory

for those of you who are still on the lookout for smaller Android phones the sony compact series has always been a pretty good way to go and to this day it's probably still your best option if you want a phone with a small form factor but even though it was announced alongside the Xperia XZ this is actually a smaller version of the Xperia X and not the XZ and unlike previous compact smartphones this isn't exactly a flagship in a smaller body it's built entirely out of plastic which doesn't feel anywhere near as nice as glass or metal but the X compact is surprisingly sturdy it doesn't creak or rattle so there's no issues at all here with the build quality but it has a super high glossy finish which is supposed to make it look more like ceramic and it does look pretty clean but like all phones with a glossy finish the X compact attracts fingerprints like crazy the top and bottom of the phone are perfectly flat which means it can stand up on its own and there's clear frosted color matched inserts that flow really well with the rest of the design the X compact also has what sony calls a loop design which is just a fancy way of saying the sides have these slight tapers that make the transition between the plastic and glass a lot more seamless and also makes the phone feel a lot more comfortable in the hand but it still has that signature Sony rectangular shape the best part about the X compact is that it's really easy to use in one hand and that's sort of the whole point behind having a compact phone and with so many large screen Android phones out there these days it's really refreshing to go back to a phone that's smaller and has a screen that can easily be reached with just your thumb from both top to bottom and left to right without having to do any crazy hand maneuvers in order to do it going around the device you have the headphone jack up top USB type-c port on the bottom a SIM card slot that also doubles as a micro SD card slot on the left and finally on the right side you have the power button volume rocker and the dedicated camera shortcut key that you typically find on Sony phones the dedicated camera shortcut key is super convenient because it works as a physical shutter and it's also a fast and direct way to get right into the camera but having three buttons on one side makes it feel a tad bit cluttered and the volume rocker sits way too far down the right side that it feels very uncomfortable to try and press with your thumb the position of the volume rocker makes a whole lot of sense when using it to control digital zoom on the camera but for controlling volume it's not in the most optimal position the X compact does have a fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button but unfortunately this feature again is not available on the US version for reasons that we'll never know and if water and dust resistance is important to you you're not getting that on the X compact either the screen is a four point six inch IPS LCD with a resolution of 720p which doesn't sound very mind-blowing but 720p works perfectly fine on this smaller display it's sharp enough that I didn't have any issues with reading text and the screen itself is generally pretty good despite how it may sound on paper it's got really nice color and saturation good viewing angles and it's surprisingly very bright making it easily viewable outdoors in direct sunlight I didn't find typing on the smaller screen to be much of an issue either but if you're big on watching YouTube Netflix or playing a lot of mobile games it's definitely not as enjoyable of an experience it feels very cramped but if you only play games or watch YouTube occasionally on your smartphone that is not going to be that much of a deal-breaker above and below the display you have two tiny slits for the dual front-facing stereo speakers and I found the overall volume to be a little on the quiet side for front-facing speakers but the sound coming out of them is actually quite good it's clean and doesn't get distorted at all but you'll get a much better audio experience by plugging in a pair of headphones the X compact has built-in support for high res audio like flak but if you don't have any high res audio files the X compact can also upscale any compressed music files to give it more of a high res sound even though it's not packing top-tier specs performance hasn't been an issue on this device it's been very responsive and fast and regular everyday use and it even runs high in games extremely well the load times are a little bit longer with some games but once the game loads up it runs very smoothly and rarely ever drops a frame the Snapdragon 650 and three gigabytes of RAM may sound a little underwhelming but it works really well for the X compact and since it's only powering a 720p display the processor isn't having to work as hard to push all those pixels the software experience also helps out a lot with the performance of this phone it's running Android 6.0 marshmallow with Sony's custom skin on top but I hesitate to even call it a skin anymore because a lot of the experience is just stock Android they've really scaled back a lot of their customizations and they've even gone as far as adding the Google now home screen into their own launcher to make the experience feel closer to stock it does however come with a lot of pre-installed bloatware from Sony's own apps to a few third-party ones but a lot of these can easily be disabled to get them out of the way and aside from that Sony's done a fantastic job with keeping the experience clean and simple considering the size of this phone battery life has also been surprisingly good it's got a twenty-seven hundred amp hour battery inside which isn't huge but it's more than good enough to get the X compact to last me comfortably through an entire day but I wouldn't expect much more than that again having that 720p display really helps out a lot here and even with my somewhat heavy usage of gaming for a couple hours a day watching YouTube and the usual email and social media I rarely ever found myself plugging in during the middle of a day if you do need to plug in during the day the phone does support quick charge 3.0 but the wall plug that it comes with does not so you have to supply your own the phone shouldn't take that long to charge anyway since it doesn't have a massive battery but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense why Sony chose not to include a quick charge compatible wall plug with their phones Sony is also making a pretty big deal about the camera on the X compact the front camera is a fairly standard 5 megapixel camera that's also wide-angle so it works perfectly for selfies but the rear camera is a 23 megapixel sensor and it's the same sensor that's only higher-end Xperia XZ to improve their camera they've added a new laser autofocus system to help with sensing distance and taking better photos in low light and there's a new color sensor to help you get much better white balance the real kicker here is that the X compact has 5 Access image stabilization for both the front and rear cameras when recording video but there's no physical hardware inside to make the stabilization half in all of Sony's camera stabilization is purely software based and before you get too excited the 5 axis stabilization only kicks in when you're recording a macro shot so unless you see macro show up in the corner of the viewfinder you're only getting 3 axis stabilization even then the 3 axis stabilization works really well to keep the footage stable without any noticeable warp or distortion but it's really strange that Sony hyped up this feature and it only works in a very limited situation the camera app is the usual camera app that we've come to expect from Sony it doesn't look like it's changed all that much from other Sony phones if at all you can swipe up or down on the screen to switch between the different modes like superior Auto manual video recording and the variety of camera effects that Sony always includes with their camera it isn't the most intuitive camera app and HDR is still only available when shooting in manual but overall the camera experience is fairly straightforward the camera is really quick to launch and snap photos and the photos that it takes are well above average they're incredibly sharp and well detailed and there's a good amount of color and saturation but they definitely have a much more natural look to them versus the oversaturated look that you might get from some other phones the camera also has a predictive hybrid autofocus feature that can continuously track moving subjects and capture them without motion blur and as long as the subject isn't moving at a ridiculously fast speed it tends to work pretty well in low-light there's still a fair amount of detail and the images come out relatively noise-free but the camera can be really slow to capture in low-light situations and if you aren't holding the phone perfectly steady you'll wind up getting a lot of blurry shots the big elephant in the room with the xperia x compact is the price it's going for $500 unlocked in the US which is really steep for what is basically a mid-range phone and it puts this phone in a pretty awkward position there's a lot of other options out there that arguably offer a lot more value for the same price or less you have phones like the Nexus 6p that's still a really solid phone despite being almost a year old at this point and if you want something even less expensive phones like a one plus three axon 7 and the honor eight are all really great options the Xperia x compact is a great phone and if you choose to buy one you won't be disappointed but without a fingerprint sensor at least on the US version or any water resistance capabilities the $500 price tag is even harder to swallow if you're looking for the best value for your money this phone is the one to get but if you want a small compact phone that doesn't have a whole lot of compromises then you might find this phone to be worth every penny as always thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed this review of the Xperia XCOM pack and if you did please give a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and check us out on social media like Instagram Twitter snapchat Google+ all that good stuff is also down below and follow me on Twitter as well and as always keep it tuned here to Android Authority because we are your source for all things Android