Gadgetory

hey are you really into super big phones with super big screens well this probably isn't gonna be the review for you not really you can go and watch something else on our channel the rest of you still with me alright let's talk about something just a little bit different you understand that a phone can be built with a specific audience in mind that we can arrive at different interpretations of productivity and that maybe just maybe there could still be a small market for some kind of novelty or fun in our smartphone design to get part of the conclusion out of the way right now it's those reasons that I just went through that make the xz1 compact one of the most fun phones I've reviewed this year if you go back through our video reviews of Sony last year I really did not enjoy what they were doing with the X the X performance high price tag numerous compromises and some severe issues with performance this year gets sony back on track they haven't addressed all of their gremlins but this phone is imminently more usable than what they were producing last year no one's gonna be shocked by this design it's the angular monolith look that Sony phones have had for the last several years and I know for a fact that there will be people who will drop the buh-buh-buh-buh-buh bezel comment long before they've even watched this part of the review I've never been the guy to be particularly bothered by bezels I'm not the one out there complaining about wasted space though I think we can all agree that the forehead and chin on this phone are pretty sizable and Sony is gonna catch a little flak for the screen resolution being more in iphone territory but none of those points take away from the fact that this is an attractive and well-built device with a singular focus on it being a small Mighty Mouse powerhouse of a phone even with a bit of a picture frame feel on that front face it doesn't take away from the fact that this phone is one of the best one thumb experiences you can have in the Android ecosystem exactly why I'm a fan of phones like the iPhone se absolutely not the most aggressive multimedia presentation but it addresses a legacy idea of a phone being a mobile communicator and it's an idea that gets me back to phones that I absolutely adored like the HTC One m7 Sony gets a lot right this year instead of using a mid-range or chipset in this phone we're back up to the top of the line gierek Wacom 835 is powering a diminutive screen four gigabytes of RAM and 32 gigabytes of built-in storage although this year at 32gb bytes of storage you're definitely gonna want to get a memory card out of the box I was really happy to see it's running Android Oreo with only a few little Sony isms altering the overall UI and navigation it's such a little thing but Sony has a toggle switch which changes how you drop shortcuts on the home screens and I don't know why that bothered me as much as it did but that's one of those few things like you used to just count on in Android you long press it drops it on your home screen and for whatever reason now you need to go into a launcher setting to re-enable that kind of behavior that's just a bad move outside of that software gripe the rest of the phone is pretty bulletproof it's lean it's mean it's snappy it's quick this is the kind of navigation that we've been praising Sony for for the last several years don't need to engage in any screen resolution manipulation or other tricks because it's only a 720p display that means when we're firing up games this thing chews through graphics intents fair and the multimedia games on point the stereo speakers are always going to be a nice addition and the headphone jack is respectably high quality though sony like Apple a company renowned for bringing high quality audio to consumers doesn't seem particularly interested in joining the fight at that top-tier that LG V Series phone kind of headphone performance the camera tech though another one of those examples of some great pros and some really obnoxious cons the sensor and the optics are very good but Sony's app can still feel like it's fighting you sometimes the way that the normal autofocus on this phone works always seems to produce just that little bit of a lag or a delay after you lock your target the phone will then cycle after you hit the shutter button it's just not a familiar feel for how most of our phones work intelligent auto is delivering some great shots it's not quite as seamless as just the normal mode that you'll engage with on a pixel but it's similar idea for image processing and I'm really happy to see that the manual mode is far more complete right from the main phone app interface you don't have to go digging through additional menu settings to find things like your shutter speed or your is up like we saw from the x/z premium in good light that super slow-motion burst is crazy fun to play with I'm still a little anxious to see those thermal throttling warnings on your camera app but honestly you're probably not gonna want to shoot tons and tons and tons a video from a phone like this anyway the bummer for video while I'm happy that Sony has included 4k video directly into the camera app you don't have to go searching for some additional plug-in or camera lens there doesn't seem to be any user controllable autofocus when you're shooting at that resolution and for some reason the image processing on 4k video just seems to be significantly darker especially in low-light conditions than what we can attain with 1080p output there are some significant improvements to this camera app but there's still this overwhelming sense of arrogance that somehow Sony knows better than you what's going to make for an amazing photo or for a really sweet video and it takes some of that control out of your hands unless you kind of fight the phone a bit to get in there and assert your creative vision but I'm always gonna be stoked to have a dedicated camera shutter button squeezy grippy things bixby buttons not just give me a two-stage camera shutter and I'm gonna be really happy I don't spend a lot of time on selfie shooters but the front-facing camera on this phone has a wide mode which rivals phones like the LG V Series a little bit more of a fisheye look a little bit more barrel distortion but if you really want to get everyone in the group in one shot this is one of the best options you have at your disposal and that brings us to battery where some people might complain that this is kind of a chunky little phone though I I liked having something that I can really hold on to the battery included the battery inside is roughly the same size as what we're going to be getting on the smaller pixel too this is easily an all-day performer thanks to the more efficient chipset and the smaller lower resolution display on a pretty busy weekend at around 9:30 at night I ended my day with three hours of screen on time with 40% of the battery still remaining I'd taken a couple calls I shot a couple dozen photos I shot a couple video clips edited them reproduced and re-rendered 4k snippets of those videos and this phone handled it all like a champ that is one of the things that I like about smaller phones there's a slightly different psychology of play I don't find myself drawn into long deep dives down social media it's really more the quick interaction pulling it out of your pocket finishing up a couple little notifications swiping away a couple messages and then getting back on with your day though it wouldn't be a Sony video if we didn't deliver one major gripe and that's this continued issue we have with North American phones and this your print sensor I popped in a review sim I have full support for t-mobile's network Wi-Fi calling but I can't unlock the phone with my thumbprint and this notion that it's NBD because I can go online and I can go through developer forums and I can try and find all these different pieces of software plugins and flash a different firmware doesn't really work for me I spent about two hours trying to do just that and ended up pretty much exactly back where I started so the xperia team is either unable or unwilling to address this problem for the United States and neither is really a good look for a company as well-respected as Sony so let's wrap this up where's that leave us with the sony xperia x z1 compact first of all that name is terrible sony xperia x z1 compact if you're watching this review I'm shocked that you even found it but all too often in Los Angeles jumping in and out of my car wrangling an angry two-year-old with one arm while I'm trying to reply to my wife and look at a shopping list at a supermarket with the other hand the smaller phone factor phone really rises to that occasion that on-the-go feel that on-the-go use again why I've been such a big fan of phones like the iPhone se we know these are not going to be the top sellers in the current smartphone market but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have them as an option folks who actually like smaller phones are usually pawned off on cheaper fare this is really exciting that we have one last nice premium example two point two that means the Sony Xperia XE one compact can deliver something that literally no other Android manufacturer can as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with a share on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag now some gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the next review