The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact ($529.99) is one of a kind: It's the only small premium Android phone on the market. With the iPhone 6 selling millions of units, it's shocking that Android manufacturers aren't offering same-size alternatives. The Z3 Compact is all we get. And while it's an excellent phone, it's not quite a slam dunk because of its heavy-handed Android skin, camera troubles, and price.
Concept
Let's start with the primary assumption. There are those of us who like to use our Android phones in one hand. If that's not you, that's okay—there's more than one phone for you out there. But I walk down the street a lot. I'm holding a kid's hand and using Maps to figure out where we're going. I'm holding a coffee and looking at my Feedly. I'm holding onto a subway pole and playing the latest Kemco game. I don't think I'm the only one.
It's been understood for the past few years that many people have trouble using devices wider than about 2.8 inches without repositioning them in their hands. That's just about the size of thumbs. I did an amateur study a few years ago with the 2.67-inch Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and LG followed up when it launched the LG G2 by saying it had done a larger study. That's why the 2.57-inch-wide 2013 Moto X became a cult device for a certain group of one-handed phone aficionados.
There are smaller phones out there, but they're generally reduced in power as well as size. The HTC One Mini 2 has a slowish Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor. The Samsung Galaxy Alpha has a cut-down camera. There's a lot of that going around.
Similar Products
Apple iPhone 6 (T-Mobile)
Samsung Galaxy Alpha (AT&T)
Motorola Moto X (2014, AT&T)
So now we have the 4.5-ounce Z3 Compact: at 5.01 inches high, 0.34 inches thick, and most importantly 2.56 inches wide, it'll fit in even the smallest hands. And with a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 20.7-megapixel camera, it isn't crippled in any way.
Physical Design and Call Quality
I love how much Sony phones don't look like other devices. That's especially true with this one, because it comes in not only black and white, but a nearly florescent orange and an aqua blue. It has a glass front and back, with a set of clear, curved plastic panels around the edge. Some of those are doors, protecting the microSD card slot, SIM card slot, and micro USB charging port, because the phone is also waterproof when the doors are closed. On the side, there's a power button, volume button, and dedicated camera key. The left side has a magnetic docking port that works with an extra $49.99 charging dock.
The Compact's size is the big deal, though. It's slimmer and lighter than the 2013 Moto X—the gold standard up until now for one-handed Android phones—and although its harder edges and slipperier surface don't fit as well in a concave palm, it has a very premium feel to it. The 4.6-inch touch screen uses some of Sony's TV technologies to give it enhanced brightness and black levels, so it's punchier than the display on the Nexus 5. So far, so good.
Voice quality is fine, if not extraordinary. The earpiece is of moderate, thoroughly average volume. Transmissions through the mic sound excellent, very sharp. The speakerphone is clear and of moderate, if not booming volume, but it has almost no noise cancellation in its mic, which can be distracting. Unfortunately, since this isn't a carrier-offered phone, it lacks T-Mobile's voice-over-LTE and Wi-Fi calling features, both of which have to be baked in by the carrier.
The Z3 Compact has all of the frequency bands needed for maximum performance on both the T-Mobile and AT&T networks. The only things I don't see on the spec sheet are support for T-Mobile's Band 12, which hasn't been implemented yet, and AT&T's carrier aggregation, which will speed up network performance next year. Along with a great array of LTE bands, the Compact has 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, and NFC.
Battery life here is excellent. Thanks to the small screen, I got 7 hours, 48 minutes of nonstop video streaming on the 2,600mAh battery over the T-Mobile LTE network.
Performance and Android
I've been using Google and Motorola devices running Android 5.0 Lollipop for a few weeks now, so I had an immediate negative reaction to Sony's extremely heavy Android 4.4.4 skin. As always with these kinds of skins, there are some useful changes and a whole lot of marketing bloatware.
For instance, I like how you can re-sort the app drawer by different criteria, and how you can customize the Quick Settings screen. I like the connection to PSN and PlayStation Remote Play, a feature that lets you use your phone with a gamepad as a secondary screen for a PS4. I like how Sony has foregrounded the ability to "throw" content wirelessly to Bluetooth speakers and Wi-Fi connected TVs. I like the answering machine function, which is voice mail stored locally on your phone. I like Garmin navigation onboard, with offline maps. There's a lot to like.
I don't like how almost all of the camera modes, bizarrely, appear in the app drawer (which basically means you have a half-dozen camera icons) and how aggressively Sony keeps trying to sell you media. There are stores integrated into the music and video players (more on these later), a Sony content 'magazine,' and more Sony suggestions.
Sony's software design is also just plain ugly when compared with the beautiful, bold, simple panes of Android 5.0 and its Material Design. It's crusted with strange gear icons and streaked with color-on-black shocker schemes. It doesn't have any of the notification innovations you find on either Lollipop or Motorola phones. It's a drag.
It doesn't appear to drag on performance, though. Benchmarks, driven by the relatively small screen and super-powered 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, were spectacular. And Sony does promise a Lollipop upgrade in the near future.
Multimedia and Camera
The Xperia Z3 Compact comes with 11.57GB of free storage, and there's room for a 64GB (or even a new 128GB) microSD card. The phone even connects to Windows shares, through another one of those odd little Sony Android extensions.
Strange things are afoot with the main camera. While it's 20.7 megapixels, it defaults to 8 megapixels and only reveals its true resolution in manual mode. Light matters, a lot. In full sunlight, photos are just gorgeous, with amazing dynamic range. But indoors and in low light, pictures either had a strange reddish cast, or focus and shutter-speed problems that left too many images blurry. The 2-megapixel front camera takes soft, but manageable shots, similarly tending a bit reddish in low light. This sure isn't a super-sharp iPhone 6. Videos recorded at 1080p resolution were marred by jitter caused by the continuous autofocus.
Various camera extensions allow for a range of special modes. There's 120 frame-per-second slo-mo, which works well, and 4K video, which is very jittery in even a slightly shaky hand. There's picture-in-picture, a bokeh effect, and silly augmented reality modes which put animated characters in your images. It's all easier to access than on Samsung phones, though.
There are many, possibly too many options for music and video playback here. Along with the standard Google apps, we have Sony's Walkman and Movies apps, which act as storefronts for Sony's Music and Movies Unlimited services. The Walkman app has social, streaming-radio, and whole-home streaming options, and the Movies app played all of our videos—including Mpeg4, Xvid, and Divx—without a problem. A highlights Movie Creator app automatically churns through your photo gallery, creating 30-second highlight reels from your photos and videos.
Pricing and Comparisons
Nobody wants a small, powerful Android phone, except for everyone who does. So Sony hasn't been able to find a carrier to pick up the Z3 Compact. Instead, it's available for $529 unlocked direct from Sony or through electronics stores like Newegg. That will seriously limit its popularity in a nation where people prefer to pay less up front for their phones.
There is no other Android-powered phone with anything like this combination of size and specs. The best comparisons are to the Google Nexus 5 ($725.00 at Amazon) ($349) and the Apple iPhone 6 ( at Amazon) ($649 unlocked.) While the Google Nexus 6 is our Editors' Choice, it's so large that it's a completely different market from this little, one-handed device.
The Nexus 5 is slightly wider, with a better screen, but a slightly slower processor and nowhere near the camera capabilities. It runs the elegant, beautiful Android Lollipop OS, with better design throughout the system. It's also almost $200 cheaper. That means the Google Nexus 5 remains our preferred, smaller unlocked phone.
The iPhone 6, meanwhile, is another unreservedly high-end, one-handed phone, with an impeccable camera and the most efficient processor in any mobile phone on the market. But the decision you're really making there is between Android and iOS, with their split between customization and more uniform design.
America needs the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. Smaller doesn't have to mean cheaper. If you want a super-phone that fits easily in one hand, you absolutely must take a look at this device.
The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact is the only high-end, smaller Android phone available in the U.S., but it's not without its flaws.
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