Sony Xperia Z3 Compact Smartphone: The new flagship from Sony
The Sony Xperia Z3 compact showed us what a smaller display smartphone can offer to us. With the revolutionary Tri-luminos display with X-Reality engine Sony actually showed what a 4.6 inches display with only 319 ppi pixel density can do just like Apple showed us what a 8MP camera can do with their iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus. If are not comfortable with the ridiculous size of the newer smartphones like Samsung galaxy edge or Nexus 6 this is the perfect phone for you. As the name suggest this a compact device that has some awesome features packed into it. Great camera quality, superb display quality, fluid processing capability, you name it, Sony Xperia Z3 has it inside!
Design:
Sony designed this phone to be more pocket friendly. Compared to other mini device from Samsung or HTC this is the best you can get out there. Although this is a little brother of Xperia Z3, it still has all the features of Z3 while being more comfortable in hand. The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact is about 5 inches long and 2.56 inches wide with .34 inch thick that comes in four colors- Black, White, Green and Orange. The weight is about 129 grams. Although the overall body design is good looking but not something that makes it outstanding. But what’s more interesting is the water-resistant and dust proof design. So no worries while you are on the beach.
Display:
The display is 4.6 inches LCD capacitive touch screen with only 319 ppi pixel density which is actually lower than the other competitor device with the same display size. But what makes Z3 compact stands out is that it uses the Bravia Engine of Sony that still provides colorful images with good sharpness and contrast. You can easily see the differences when you are watching movies or playing games on Z3 compact. The display does not belong to the QHD family but with the resolution of 1,280 x 720 it still shows vivid images. The red feels more reddish, the blue feels more bluish on this display. Although you cannot change the color setting of this display if you want a more normal looking, less vivid images. The display is also protected by shatterproof glass.
Hardware:
As Sony is calling it their flagship device, they also packed it with their flagship hardwares. Like the bigger Z3, the Compact Z3 has a quad-core 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, although it has a smaller amount of RAM of 2GB lacking about 1GB from the Z3. With 16GB internal storage Z3 Compact also has a card slot that supports up to 128GB storage memory. With 2.5GHz processor you’ll feel the smoothness while using this phone. Everything seems fluid as long as the other depending connections are all right.
Camera:
The Z3 has the same same 20.7-megapixel, 1/2.3-inch Exmor RS sensor camera of Z1 with an addition of a new, wider 25mm, f/2.0 G Lens. The front facing camera is 2.2 megapixels. So not a great news for selfie lovers out there! There are also some complains that the picture quality at low light is not much good either.
Connectivity and Technology:
The Z3 Compact supports all the available networks on 2g, 3g, 4g network with GPRS capability of Up to 107 kbps and EDGE capacity of Up to 296 kbps and has high speed Wi-Fi and Blue-tooth. The phone uses a nano sim for connecting to the network.
Battery:
The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact has a Non-removable Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery that can provide up to 880 hours of 2g and 920 hours of 3g standby time with 14 hours of 3g talk-time. The music play time is about 110 hours. The Sony Xperia Z3 has Quick Charge 2.0 that allows the battery to be charged up-to 60% within 30 minutes.
Multimedia and Other Features:
The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact runs on KitKat v4.4.4 but planned upgrade to v5.0 (Lollipop). The sound quality is not so bad and capable of playing videos of all sorts with vivid quality. So if you are planning to watch movies while you travel, this is still a viable phone with smaller display. The camera has features like 1/2.3” sensor size, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, HDR and panorama.
Pros:
- Excellent battery life.
- Superb CPU performance
- Flagship design and build
- Reduced size but Z3 like features and hardware.
Cons:
- Poor camera performance on low light
Verdict:
Though small in size, it is still quite good in performance. It is comfortable and easy to use using one hand and fits perfectly inside pockets. The design is elegant and the front camera performs quite good in normal light (although not much in low light). If you are looking for a smaller phone this is the best you can get.
