Xperia Z1 Compact... finally the holy grail for "normal sized" phone enthusiasts?

manveruppd · 31 Jan 2014 at 15:05

Would love to hear more about your impressions of this phone from anyone who receives theirs! I was hugely excited when they announced it and applauded Sony for finally giving proper attention to smaller form factors. On paper this looks like the best phone at this size (although with the Moto X price drop I'd probably go for that if I were buying today, but it'd still be a close contest), and I'm curious how it actually feels.

EDIT: btw I CAN install apps to SD card on my HTC, don't know what you all are talking about. Could do it even before I rooted it. Including a 1GB game recently.

DIABLO · 31 Jan 2014 at 16:16

Saundie said:
It feels good in the hand - unlike the Z1, I can reach the whole display with one hand. It also fits in my pocket without digging into my gut, which the Z1 would. To me, it feels like a more refined version of what I already had, so I feel very comfortable with it already.

Are you talking about the Qi charger? Given that Qi is a standard, I can't see any reason why the Nexus 7 Qi charger wouldn't work. I ordered a cheap Qi charger from the rainforest place for £15 but it's only 1A. I've also ordered a cheap plastic case from the eBay for £3, just to stop the back and sides from getting scratched.

I'm not planning on taking any photos of the phone, as there are hundreds of them of them online. I doubt anybody will be interested in seeing it compared to an Acro S, as nobody else has an Acro S.

The one thing putting me off about this phone is the pre-fitted screen protector which if you take you lose the Sony branding. How easy did it scratch on your Z1?

kona786 · 31 Jan 2014 at 16:35

The no branding on the front is a bonus in my eyes.

Em3bbs · 31 Jan 2014 at 17:01

Arthur Hucksake said:
Could someone do me a favour and tell me what the readouts are for the charger?

O2 don't provided chargers with their phones.

Even for O2 phones with no charger you can still get one with the phone at cost price at the point of sale - it's about £2.99 or something.

killem · 31 Jan 2014 at 17:15

Well just been E-Mailed the invoice so with luck it should be despatched soon.

Richdog · 31 Jan 2014 at 17:18

Well, I just walked straight in my local store and picked one up, SIM-FREE, for the princely sum of 335GBP.

It's charging now and I'm going out on the lash tonight, so no way am I touching it till tomorrow. First impressions are screen is nice and sharp, build quality great, and the size is PERFECT. It charges very quickly too!

slipd · 31 Jan 2014 at 17:39

Richdog said:
Well, I just walked straight in my local store and picked one up, SIM-FREE, for the princely sum of 335GBP.

It's charging now and I'm going out on the lash tonight, so no way am I touching it till tomorrow. First impressions are screen is nice and sharp, build quality great, and the size is PERFECT. It charges very quickly too!

Wowzers! £335? Not in the UK I take it then

The cheapest I can find is around £430.

Richdog · 31 Jan 2014 at 17:47

sam.wheale said:
Wowzers! £335? Not in the UK I take it then

The cheapest I can find is around £430.

Swissieland, electronics are very cheap here.

MJ · 31 Jan 2014 at 18:15

That's absolutely ridiculous. If hadn't ordered one I might have got a flight there and had a few days in Switzerland. The offset of the phone would have paid for my flight with easyjet!

On the plus side I have had an invoice so hopefully it will despatched soon.

Arthur Hucksake · 31 Jan 2014 at 19:00

Got one. What a beautiful device it is.

I don't care about the smaller screen, it is THE best phone I have used in recent times.

Arthur Hucksake · 31 Jan 2014 at 19:01

Em3bbs said:
Even for O2 phones with no charger you can still get one with the phone at cost price at the point of sale - it's about £2.99 or something.

They didn't have any Xperia chargers. He tried to give me some generic Sony one that had 850ma output, but that doesn't sound right to me.

MLAM · 31 Jan 2014 at 19:19

Someone bought one today and I transferred stuff over from his old iPhone 4 so I had a good play with it, very impressed with the feel and weight of it, nice size too but the screen doesn't look that small, I personally have a Nexus 5 so I'm used to a bigger screen.

Screen viewing angles are good and so too are the colours.

Saundie · 31 Jan 2014 at 19:52

DIABLO said:
The one thing putting me off about this phone is the pre-fitted screen protector which if you take you lose the Sony branding. How easy did it scratch on your Z1?

No scratches as of yet, but I figure it's still worth putting it in a cheap case just to make sure it stays scratch free.

Arthur Hucksake said:
Got one. What a beautiful device it is.

I don't care about the smaller screen, it is THE best phone I have used in recent times.

Although it's still early days, I am inclined to agree. I actually got through a full day without needing to charge the thing - something I've not been able to enjoy since the old feature phone days. It's also really, really fast

Em3bbs · 1 Feb 2014 at 00:36

Arthur Hucksake said:
They didn't have any Xperia chargers. He tried to give me some generic Sony one that had 850ma output, but that doesn't sound right to me.

That can't be right I'm afraid - they don't give out Sony chargers. There are specific universal chargers given which are tested for every device with chargers out of the box.

Are you sure it was a Sony charger?

deltalinx · 1 Feb 2014 at 00:55

Love the look of this, the smaller display is really attractive and I like mid small/size phones, I just dislike Sony

Arthur Hucksake · 1 Feb 2014 at 06:13

Em3bbs said:
That can't be right I'm afraid - they don't give out Sony chargers. There are specific universal chargers given which are tested for every device with chargers out of the box.

Are you sure it was a Sony charger?

100% sure of it. Not even Sony Ericsson.

He got it from the back of the store, they use it for displays. He wasn't going to charge me for it. Nice gesture I guess.

Richdog · 1 Feb 2014 at 13:37

Oh. My. God.

I love this phone, I mean really love it. The size and weght are perfect, it feels like the Android equivalent of an iPhone, and whoever makes any reference to "omg the bezel is big" has no clue what they are talking about. It's a non-issue.

The speed and responsiveness of this phone are amazing. I have never owned a Snapdragon 800 before so maybe this is par the course for an SOC of this calibre, but the phone is lightning in its responsiveness.

The display is IPS, so like an IPS, is great. Enough said. Text legibility is great, basically like the Samsung Galaxy SII in size, so for me is perfect.

The call quality is great. The speaker is actually surprisingly decent, cleear with little distortion, but sadly positioned so that its easy to cover with your hand when holding it. However, in reality it's not a big issue.

The Sony UI is very clean, I like it more than Samsung Touchwiz, although overall functionality is probably less. However, considering Samsung tend to over-functionalise things seemingly for the sake of it, for me that's not an issue.

Camera, same as the Z1, very decent. Wireless speed, like lightning with my 802.11ac router... apps and updated download and install incredibly quick.

As for battery life, I will report back in a couple of days. Best phone I have ever owned. End of.

Excuse the short paragraphing, but I am currently hungover as hell.

Arthur Hucksake · 1 Feb 2014 at 20:21

Richdog said:
Oh. My. God.

I love this phone, I mean really love it. The size and weght are perfect, it feels like the Android equivalent of an iPhone, and whoever makes any reference to "omg the bezel is big" has no clue what they are talking about. It's a non-issue.

The speed and responsiveness of this phone are amazing. I have never owned a Snapdragon 800 before so maybe this is par the course for an SOC of this calibre, but the phone is lightning in its responsiveness.

The display is IPS, so like an IPS, is great. Enough said. Text legibility is great, basically like the Samsung Galaxy SII in size, so for me is perfect.

The call quality is great. The speaker is actually surprisingly decent, but positioned so that its easy to cover with your hand when holding it. However, in reality not a big issue.

The Sony UI is very clean, I like it more than Samsung Touchwiz, although overall functionality is probably less. However, considering Samsung tend to over-functionalise things seemingly for the sake of it, for me that's not an issue.

Camera, same as the Z1, very decent. Wireless speed, like lightning with my 802.11ac router... apps and updated download and install incredibly quick.

As for battery life, I will report back in a couple of days. Best phone I have ever owned. End of.

Excuse the short paragraphing, but I am currently hungover as hell.

I said similar things. It is the iPhone of the Android world in many ways. It is so so damn slick. None of that UI jitter you often get with just about every Android device.

The battery life is superb.

I had 3 and half hours on screen time, 1 hours of calls, 8 hours on battery total and still had 60% left. That is stunning. We are talking a decent sized Android device with iPhone capacity.

Then you have Stamina mode to consider, which I haven't even touched on yet.

I am smitten with this phone. This is a top top notch device.

slipd · 1 Feb 2014 at 20:48

DIABLO said:
The one thing putting me off about this phone is the pre-fitted screen protector which if you take you lose the Sony branding. How easy did it scratch on your Z1?

Is that to say you can't use your own screen protectors? Eg. the 10x for 99p one's that you can pick up on eBay

I get through a lot of protectors on my iPhone which indicates I need them a lot.

DIABLO · 1 Feb 2014 at 23:00

sam.wheale said:
Is that to say you can't use your own screen protectors? Eg. the 10x for 99p one's that you can pick up on eBay

I get through a lot of protectors on my iPhone which indicates I need them a lot.

Of course you can but a screen protector on top of screen protector would do nothing for screen quality or touch sensitivity.