Gadget Review: Sony Xperia Z3 Compact proves small is beautiful

Software

Xperia Z3 Compact runs the latest Android 4.4 with Sony's custom user interface on top. There are various proprietary apps preloaded on the phone such as Sociallife, Smart connect, WisePilot navigation, backup & restore, Sony Live sports, Sony LIV and Xperia Lounge. Using the built-in PlayStation app you can even move your PS4 game on to the phone screen and continue playing it anywhere in your house over WiFi.

In addition, there are a few third party apps also present including Kobo, Evernote AVG antivirus, OfficeSuite, Bigflix, LinkedIn and File commander. All this delivers a good out of the box experience to the user as it covers almost all genres of apps except games.

The interface itself works butter smooth and has no visible lag or sluggishness even with multiple apps running in the background. Switching between running apps is almost instant and the phone comes with built-in support for playback of major audio and video formats. Sony has also built-in an option to use NFC for making wireless payments once compatible service is available.

Display

Compared to Xperia Z1 compact and even Xperia Z2, the display on the Xperia Z3 compact is much improved. The 4.6-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels that gives it a pixel density of 319 ppi.

It uses shatterproof glass for sturdiness and has slim bezels on the sides to keep the phone's overall dimensions compact. The phone uses Sony's proprietary Triluminos display with X-Reality engine delivering excellent viewing angles, superb brightness levels with rich colour output.

A smart backlight control option keeps the screen while the user is looking at it - there is an option to enable/disable it in the settings. Along with this, there is also a glove mode that can be enabled in case you want to use it with gloves. There is also the option to enable double tap to wake up the screen in case you don't want to use the power button every time.

The primary camera on the Z3 compact uses a 20.7MP sensor (1/2.3' sensor size) and has a LED flash for low light conditions. In our usage, the camera too superb images in daylight as well as indoors. However, at times we did notice light purple fringing on the corners in low light.

The autofocus is quick and you can choose to capture an image using the volume keys, dedicated shutter button or via the touchscreen. Low light images are also excellent, even though there is visible noise they are good enough to be shared on social media.

(This image was clicked using a Sony Xperia Z3 compact)

The phone also does video recording in 4K resolution and the video quality is fantastic - no visible artifacts, good colours and clear audio. However, the phone warns that if the device temperature rises, the app may close - an issue we saw on the Xperia Z2 also.

The front camera took blurry images as its fixed focus. Also, for no clear reason, it too over a second to save photos taken with the front camera while the rear camera saved images in an instant.

(This image was clicked using a Sony Xperia Z3 compact)

The user interface keeps basic elements on screen and offers a plethora of shooting modes such as manual controls, multi-camera, TimeShift, background defocus and sweep panorama - similar as the one on most of the recent Sony Xperia phones. Sony has also added the option to download new camera modes from within the camera app, however at the time of review this feature was not working.

(This image was clicked using a Sony Xperia Z3 compact)