Gadgetory

big is in it's not just something we like to say and it's not just something OMS are trying to force down our throats big smartphones with big screens make a better match for our ever-changing use cases they're arguably better for playing games reading browsing the web hacking through your emails on the go and just about anything else you can imagine except for calls of course if you're not into the big phone craze you're almost out of luck all the so called mini versions of high-end smartphones unnecessarily sacrifice specifications in favor of a more pocket-friendly form factor Sony wants to change that the Xperia z3 compact is by today's standards a high-end smartphone but it's much smaller than your average hero phone is it worth the buy though that's the real question I'm Taylor Martin with pocket now and this is our review of the Sony Xperia z3 compact we want to extend one final thanks to our friends over a clove for supplying us with an xperia z3 compact for review visit clove code at UK to see about getting your very own z3 compact or to browse hundreds of other mobile products for sale if you've used any of the Sony smartphones from the last 18 months the design of the z3 compact will not strike you as odd or unusual it features the very same design languages all Sony's recent phones like the newer Xperia z3 the compact features the slightly more rounded edges however its edges aren't the high-quality metal like found on the z3 instead it has translucent polycarbonate edges which aren't exactly unusual for Sony otherwise it's the same square hard edged chassis sandwiched between two slabs of glass you get the same protruding silver power standby button covered ports to uphold the ip68 certification and dual front firing speakers which were first introduced on the z2 and while the bezels aren't the thinnest we've ever seen the z3 compact is very light on wasted space it has to be it crams a four point six inch display into a tiny little package which is slimmer and neater than the beloved Moto X it's just 129 grams 127 point three millimeters tall 64 point 9 millimeters wide and eight point six millimeters thick somehow it maintains its small nature without sacrificing hardly any specifications it has 2 gigabytes of RAM 16 gigabytes of fixed storage with a micro SD card slot for up to 128 additional gigabytes a fixed 2600 milliamp hour battery a Snapdragon 801 SOC with a 2.5 gigahertz quad-core Krait 400 CPU and a twenty point seven megapixel camera with a physical shutter button and has Wi-Fi 802 and Bluetooth Low Energy the only factor that might turn some potential buyers away is the 4.6 inch display obviously its size it's in the catch it's the resolution 720p that's a total of 319 pixels per inch the triluminos panel is extra vibrant thanks to the x-reality Engine blacks are deep and despite the 720p it's still pretty sharp honestly we can't find many bad things to say about this display except for maybe the side visibility viewing angles aren't the best if you're after a very pocketable phone and you're okay with some port covers and double the exposed glass the z3 compact is as good as it gets under 4.7 inches it's pretty built exceptionally well and Sony polls nope punches on the hardware the same goes for software it's running Android 4.4.4 beneath Sony's custom skin and some improvements have been made since the last time we looked at Sony's UI more themes are available some third-party small apps have been added to the mix and the overall look has improved we're huge fans of some of the work sony has done in the settings app the ability to toggle certain info off and on in the status bar is something every Android phone should have likewise the ability to clear some missed notifications out of the status bar without removing them from the notification shade it's something will sorely miss when using other devices even the appearance of the home screens is more stock like from the edit pages function to the app drawer it looks a lot like the Google now launcher it's frothy and snappy and we rather like it but not everything is perfect the bloat is an issue some apps come pre-installed to show off the camera applications function plugins to use directly from within the camera app and we're not fans of how hard Sony pushes its own content stores the what's new app is accessed with an inappropriately placed shortcut to the left of the Google now shortcut the Sony specific content only really benefits you if you own other Sony products like a ps4 if you do you're going to be able to get more out of your Sony mobile products in the not-too-distant future in all we're happy with most of the changes Sony made to its software it's actually improved the Android experience some and it offers enough customizations for users to make their phone truly theirs without sacrificing user experience and cluttering the UI with too many frivolous features performance is an area where the z3 compact leaves other smartphones in the same class in the dust it screams through everyday tasks without hesitation scrolling switching apps pinch zooming returning home and everything else is buttery smooth it slices through synthetic benchmarks and is especially great at gaming and multimedia playback despite its 720p display the front firing audio is a huge plus and we haven't had a single notable issue with this phone's performance at all it definitely holds its own even amongst its larger high-end competition technically the z3 compact isn't optimized for use here in the States but it works just fine on t-mobile with all the proper band support we've gotten respectable data speeds and call quality was acceptable we plan to really test this more over the weekend in different parts of the state so look for more in-depth information in the written portion of the review next week likewise we'll really put the battery to the test over the weekend but so far it's been fantastic averaging well over four and a half hours of screen on time per charge that's while snapping tons of photos browsing the web benchmarking playing games and syncing several social and email accounts we'll put it this way in the time we've been testing it we haven't needed to enable one of the many power saving modes yet the camera is easily one of the highlights of this phone but there's more to it than that you're going to have to put in work to get great photos out of the z3 compact by default it shoots pictures at 8 megapixels using the superior auto mode this mode does a fantastic job of picking just the right settings for any given shooting conditions at the expense of a lot of resolution if you want to shoot at full resolution you'll be shooting in 4:3 aspect ratio and you'll have to switch to manual mode for someone who knows what they're doing it's not so bad maybe a little cumbersome to have to manually tweak several settings each time you snap a photo but in both modes the camera captures lots of details with very sharp focus the downside is color reproduction and like competing smartphone cameras the z3 compact airs heavily on the cool side taking lots of dull and drab photos it's nothing you can't fix with a photo editor after the fact but it's definitely something to be aware of and low-light the digital stabilization is great often making very dark scenes much brighter than they actually are depending on your preferences that could be a good or bad thing personally we fall though low-light shots turn out very muddy with very little detail but we guess it's better to have bright muddy pictures than pitch-black pictures overall the camera is very capable but it may not be the best camera for someone just wanting pictures to turn out great every single time with no hassle in all the Xperia z3 compact is a fantastic little phone Sony did a wonderful job scaling down the z3 its footprint is small enough to actually be considered compact its specs are in line with many 2014 flagships and it has all the great features found on the Xperia z3 we're not completely done testing this phone so we'll have more for you in the full written review next week spoiler alert we really like this phone and so will anyone looking for something a little smaller than your average smartphone without tons of compromises the Xperia z3 compact is exactly what every so-called mini smartphone should have been all along thanks for watching everyone if you enjoyed the video give it a thumbs up and subscribe also follow us on social media twitter facebook Instagram and Google+ at pocket now I'm Taylor Martin Casper tech on Twitter and I will see you next time