[Xperia Z General] Tomatoes8:
Get a Xiaomi Phone 2 if you can give up LTE and if the HSPA bands are compatible in your country. It has 2GB, S4 pro, and 4.3 720p screen at 342ppi. It will outperform all current phones easily since it uses the same internals as the Nexus 4, Xperia Z, DNA, and probably the M7 but because the miui based OS is super optimized for speed and it pushes less pixels than all the other flagships, it performs better than all other current android phones. Not exactly a fact that anything 4.3 is mid range is it?

Another example would be the One S with the Qualcomm S4 that outperforms the flagship One X easily because it pushes less pixels. Sure the low resolution screen ruins the One S but it isn't so black and white which one is the mid range and which one is the flagship. Is the One X the flagship because of the better screen? Or is the One S the flagship because of the aluminum build, thinness, and superior performance(from both the AMOLED speed and pushing less pixels)? As you can see from the link below, the One S soundly outperforms the One XL.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5868/htc-one-s-review-international-and-tmobile/3

Not so clear cut. In my opinion, they are currently doing it properly. Have the smaller phones with slightly lesser internals because if they had exactly the same internals, the smaller phones will outperform the bigger flagships and that would be marketing suicide. Companies should design them so that they basically perform the same, which means slightly lower clocked internals to prevent it from outperforming the 5 inch flagship and to prevent the smaller battery(remember, smaller phone means smaller battery too so having the exact same internals as a 5 inch flagship on a 4 inch variant wouldn't supply you with the same battery life, it would be much worse on the 4 inch) from croaking too fast.

4.0 - 4.3 phones are flagships in their own right. The Xiaomi phone 2 is just beast. The One S and 8x perform every bit as good, if not better, as the One X and Lumia 920. The Xperia V performs better than the Xperia T in everything except battery life and screen size. So just buy the so called "mid range" and be happy because the flagship is just a marketing label.

Don't worry about the spec sheet,1080p screens, and huge batteries. First, you can't even fit a 1080p resolution in a 4 inch screen anytime soon, Apple is already maxed out at 1136 x 640. 4.3 inch is probably maxed out at 1280 x 768(Z10) Maybe with the current technology you can do 1280 x 800 in a 4 inch.

As far as batteries go. A 4 inch phone doesn't need a 2300 mah battery to last all day. Sure you can try and cram a 3300 mah in a small body but that would just defeat the purpose of having a smaller phone, it would be too thick to be more portable than a 5 inch flagship. So 4.3 720p, 1900 mah battery, S4 or S4 pro is a flagship for all intents and purposes.

Current flagships with smaller screens.

Xperia S( it just made it because the Qualcomm S3 was still sort of relevant at release)

Acer Cloudmobile

Xperia V

Xiaomi Phone 2

HTC 8x

BlackBerry Z10

iphone 5(LOL I guess)

HTC Rezound

HTC One S(if you can live with the screen)

Upcoming flagships with smaller screens.

GS4 mini

HTC M4

Xperia something

So moral of the story? Fans of smaller phones need to shut up. They have it just as good, if not better than fans of phones 4.5 inches and above.