Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review

They're smaller but still very powerful – we love the Compact range

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INTRODUCTION AND DESIGN

Update: Sony Xperia Z5 Compact released in the US in February, albeit with minor changes. All of these are reflected in our new review.

The Xperia Z5 Compact stands alone: Sony is the only Android manufacturer making a small high-end phone right now. That means that it could be the last stand for compacts. If the Z5 doesn't deliver, it's likely to be the last time we see top specs in a scaled-down form factor, for a while at least.

But it does deliver. Like the Xperia Z3 Compact before it, the Xperia Z5 Compact puts an impressive array of features comfortably into the palm of your hand, and makes you wonder why no other brands are interested in this niche.

Not everyone wants a giant phone, and who could be blamed for wanting to use their whole screen without needing both hands?

The Xperia Z5 Compact sits alongside two other new phones from Sony. There's the Sony Xperia Z5, which offers a 5.2-inch 1,080p screen and 3GB of RAM that you don't get here. Then there's the Xperia Z5 Premium, which will be here in November with a 5.5-inch screen and a 4K resolution screen.

One problem for the Xperia Z5 Compact is its price. High-end specs require a high-end price, even if the reduced frame might lead purchasers to expect a bargain. However, it does come in appreciably cheaper than the Xperia Z5, and a good deal below our original expectations.

The Xperia Z5 Compact costs £429 in the UK (about AU$915) – that's over £100 less than the slightly breathtaking price of £549 that Sony originally put on its site. The new price matches the launch price of the Xperia Z3 Compact last year, and you do get a lot for your money here.

It's a completely different story in the US, where the Z5 Compact unlocked retails for the full price of $500 - ouch! It's not available via popular US carrier subsidies, which will blunt its success, but Amazon does have it on sale for $435.

Design

The Xperia Z5 Compact follows closely the excellent design established by the Xperia Z5. It isn't drastically smaller than the Z5 – the Compact is 127 x 65 x 8.9mm, compared to 146 x 72 x 7.3mm. But it's enough to make a difference.

The Xperia Z5 Compact has lost a lot of the bezel space that felt so redundant on the Z5, and feels a lot more concise than its bigger sibling.

You might have noticed that the Z5 Compact is actually bigger than the Z5 in one dimension: it's a little thicker. That's to fit in all those high-end specs and a bigger battery than the larger phone. I barely noticed the difference in thickness until I put them next to each other, and even then it wasn't all that shocking.

The Sony Xperia Z5 Compact weighs in at 138g, 16g lighter than the Z5. Build wise, it's a similar size and weight to the iPhone 6S.

The back panel is much nicer on this new version of the Compact model. Instead of the clear glass back from previous handsets, it's now a frosted glass that feels good against the palm and looks stylish.

Colour options are white, black, yellow or coral – I was able to use all versions but the white for this review. The black version feels the most stylish, while the yellow and coral are particularly bright. They wouldn't be my choice of phone, but for those who liked the colour-pop aesthetic of the iPhone 5C, they're perfect.

The corners have been rounded off even further on the Xperia Z5 Compact than on the Z3 Compact, making it a much more comfortable fit in the hand.

The anti-break bumpers of the Xperia Z5 aren't included here, so the Compact is more likely to shatter if it falls on one of the four corners. It's unclear why Sony made this decision – they would have been easy to implement, and would make a big difference to the durability of the phone.

At the top of the left hand edge of the phone, there's the indented Xperia logo, which actually looks good this time around. On the bottom of that edge is the only flap on the handset, covering the microSD and nanoSIM slot.

It's easier to open this up than it has been on previous Xperia phones, and as you'll only need to on the rare occasions that you're swapping a SIM or microSD.

In the centre of the bottom edge sits the micro USB port for charging and data transfer. It's a shame that Sony hasn't moved on to USB-C to minimise fumbling when plugging in, but at least the inconvenience of the flap has been removed.

And Sony isn't behind the pack on USB standards, even if it would have been nice for it to get ahead. In a few years, smartphones will have moved on and USB-C will become the norm, but for now most still use micro USB.

The 3.5mm headphone jack sits at the top of the phone on the left hand side, which is the best place for it as it means the phone can sit in your pocket while you use a wired headset

At the bottom of the right hand edge is the camera button, in the perfect position for taking landscape shots. Just above that is the volume rocker, which has been moved since the Xperia Z3 Compact. This relocation is less successful, and some fumbling is required to reach down to it.

It would have been to put the volume rocker just above the power button on the same side, but at least it's not as bad as it is on the Xperia Z5. On the larger phone it's really hard to reach and the handset flips out of the hand easily.

The power button itself sits flush with the design. This is metal with the on/off symbol engraved on it. It looks good, but the exciting part is that this now features the fingerprint scanner – a new addition to the Xperia Z series, except in the hobbled US variant.

On the front of the phone, there are bezels above and below the display to house the front-facing speakers, microphone and front-facing camera. These are thinner on the Xperia Z5 Compact than on the Xperia Z5 and that means a better screen-to-body ratio.

The iPhone SE Review

intro and design

With the launch of the iPhone 6, Apple had finally tapped into the latent demand for bigger iPhones, and as a result we saw some record-setting quarters from Apple. However, at the same time by moving to a larger display size there was a fairly sizeable audience that was being left behind. While a 4.7" phone is generally a one-handed device for most, there's definitely a sizeable portion of iPhone users that bought the iPhone 5s because the 4-inch size was the largest they could go without facing problems with one-handed usability.

The other challenge that Apple faced was their need to be more competitive at the mid-range. For a lot of people, 300-400 USD is pretty much the most that they can afford to pay for a smartphone, and as a result the value proposition for an iPhone flagship that was two generations behind the latest was increasingly weak in markets like India and China, especially when Xiaomi and Huawei were often shipping the latest and greatest hardware for similar prices. While margin might not be as high in this segment of the market, the volume here can definitely compensate.

With these two issues in mind, this brings us to Apple's newest iPhone, the iPhone SE. As Apple's smaller iPhone, the iPhone SE has two functions. It provides a viable option for users who want a smaller iPhone, and it allows Apple to sell at price points that they can't reach with their larger and more expensive iPhones. This is especially key with Apple's push to increase sales in emerging markets like China and India, as for many people the price of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus makes them inaccessible. As you'll see, the iPhone SE brings the price of a new iPhone lower than it has ever been before.

It's probably no surprise at this point, but the iPhone SE is going to be a familiar phone. With essentially the same chassis as the iPhone 5s, the iPhone SE marks the first time that Apple has used the same design in three generations of an iPhone. While the iPhone SE is the same as the iPhone 5s on the outside, Apple has made some serious improvements to what's on the inside. Below you can see how Apple's new 4-inch smartphone compares to its predecessor, and to Apple's flagship iPhone, the iPhone 6s.

Apple iPhone Line
	Apple iPhone 5s	Apple iPhone SE	Apple iPhone 6s
SoC	Apple A7 2 x 1.3GHz Apple Cyclone	Apple A9 2 x 1.85GHz Apple Twister
GPU	PowerVR GX6450	PowerVR GT7600
RAM	1GB LPDDR3	2GB LPDDR4
Display	4.0-inch 1136 x 640 IPS LCD		4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD
Size / Mass	123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm 112 grams	123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm 113 grams	138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm 143 grams
Camera	Rear Facing 8MP iSight with 1.5µm pixels + True Tone Flash	Rear Facing 12MP iSight with 1.22µm pixels + True Tone Flash
	Front Facing 1.2MP f/2.4		Front Facing 5MP f/2.2 + Retina Flash
Storage	16GB 32GB 64GB	16GB 64GB	16GB 64GB 128GB
I/O	Apple Lightning connector, 3.5mm headset
WiFi	2.4/5GHz Dual Band 1x1 802.11n  BT 4.2	2.4/5GHz Dual Band 1x1 802.11ac BT 4.2, NFC	2.4/5GHz Dual Band 2x2 802.11ac BT 4.2, NFC
Price	16GB: $449	16GB: $399 64GB: $499	16GB: $649 64GB: $749 128GB: $849

Even if I hadn’t put any images on this page, it’s likely that you’d be able to visualize the design of the iPhone SE. At its core it’s a design that has been around since 2012, with a few tweaks having been made along the way. Despite that, it’s a design that still holds up, and I think the HTC One M7 is the only other device from that time that you can really say that about today.

From an aesthetic point of view, the chassis style of the iPhone 5, 5s, and SE is still one of my favorite smartphone designs. The flat sides, chamfered edges, circular volume buttons, and antenna inserts all make for an elegant look, and in my opinion it’s actually a more visually appealing design than that of the iPhone 6/6s which uses injected plastic antenna lines, chiclet buttons, and a camera hump. On the flip side, the iPhone 6 definitely comes ahead as far as ergonomics are concerned. The flat sides and chamfered edges of the SE make for an elegant design, but when you make a phone with flat edges on all sides you inevitably end up with a somewhat brick-like device that doesn’t conform well to the human hand. The fact that the iPhones with this design have all had displays of 3.5” or 4” lets them get away with this due to their smaller profile, but there’s no denying that the curved iPhone 6 design has a better in-hand feel.

Almost nothing has changed externally going from the iPhone 5s to the SE. The dimensions are unchanged, and the mass has only gone up by a single gram. I've only noticed two changes. The first is the elimination of the regulatory logos from the rear of the chassis, and the second is a change from a shiny chamfered edge to one with a matte finish that matches the rest of the chassis. Beyond that, and the inclusion of the new rose gold color, the design is unchanged from the iPhone 5s.

Going with an older design has some advantages and drawbacks, and some of these end up being the same aspect viewed from two different perspectives. For example, with the SE being a less expensive iPhone in an older design, Apple isn’t pushed to make it the thinnest possible device. While this is arguably a bad thing by Apple’s own standards, it does mean that there’s more space for the battery than if Apple were to slim down the device, and you don’t get a camera hump. The older design does come with a fairly large bezel on the left and right sides of the screen relative to the size of the display itself, and the black space between the white face plate and the actual screen is significantly thicker than on newer iPhones which does make the design look a bit dated.

The iPhone SE may be part of a larger general trend where smartphone designs don’t change as significantly from generation to generation now that the market is maturing. In many ways, having to change your design every year is actually not a good thing, as it implies that your past design had significant flaws that necessitated a brand new one. Samsung’s Galaxy S7 is a good example of this, with the design changes being minimal but noticeable refinements on the existing Galaxy S6 which had a much better design than its predecessors. Good design is long-lasting, and much like how the truly good laptops on the market can keep the same design for many years, smartphones will likely begin to do so as well, with smaller refinements to accommodate new features, and in Apple’s case, a continued reduction in device thickness.

Ultimately, the design of the iPhone 5 and 5s still works, and there aren’t any significant flaws with it that would necessitate a change in design. With it being a well-known and, as Apple puts it, beloved design, it’s not surprising to see it return for a third time in the iPhone SE. While there are some small tweaks like changing the chamfered edge from a reflective to a matte finish, the core design is the same one that Apple’s