[Xperia Z3 Compact General] gazzawazza:
[MENTION=6102408]HellzHere[/MENTION]

Hi Hellz

Sorry but I've got a z3 compact and simply can't recommend it. That's a lot to like about it on paper but after mine experienced a modest fall onto carpet, which resulted in the back of the case cracking, I don't want others to suffer the upset that I have. The design is flawed IMO. The choice of materials are inappropriate for typical everyday usage.

Most of the high end xperias seem to use glass front and back . To me, this is insane. It creates a nice aesthetic but is significantly at the cost of practicality. The z3 compact doesn't use dragontail or gorilla glass... or at least Sony do not specify the materials used on their website beyond "tempered glass".

My previous phone was an HTC desire (yes the original one) and this has been dropped on occasion, onto pavements, etc, and one occasion in a carpark (for no other reason than it slipped out of my hand during use). I did not use a case with it and the worst that happened was a crack across one corner of the screen.

There is no way that the z3 compact could tolerate similar drops or falls. I do not consider myself to be careless with stuff but this new phone is a pain in the butt. For example, It WILL slip off surfaces, due to the low friction / high gloss nature of the handset.

If you are determined to get one, you MUST get a case for it.

I waited two years before a handset came on the market with the specifications that I was looking for. I am utterly gutted that mine is now broken, after only having it for a fortnight and it only being subjected to a very modest level of external stress. I did not even drop the phone - it slipped off a surface.

Then there is the issue of self-cracking. This is reasonably well documented and doesn't just apply to the z3 and z3 compact. Sony would have us believe that this only occurs in a small number of cases. I don't think it's common-place but it's happened to enough people for Sony to quietly repair stuff for free, under certain circumstances. Admittedly, Sony only really started doing this after two high profile UK consumer rights organisations / programmes got involved in the matter (watchdog and Which). The impression I get (from anecdotal evidence) is Sony does it grudgingly.

All I'll say is have a look at this xda-dev survey thread:

http://xdaforums.com/z3-compact/general/sony-xperia-z3-z3-compact-glass-survey-t2900149

What I found interesting is that out of the 439 surveys, 26% reported back of case cracks, compared to 18% of the front screen.

However, of that 26%, over two thirds reported NO impact cracking i.e. there seems to be vastly more people who've experienced self-cracking than drop or fall damage.

Reviews also comment on the phone heating up A LOT during some forms of usage i.e. a possible reason for self-cracking.

Finally, from my personal experience, the camera sounds good on paper but underperforms. Some images look great yet I got pixellation on 20mb images in high light level conditions. I wasn't impressed. I also struggled to get the flash to illuminate a short distance, low light situation properly as well. More annoyingly, my friend had a galaxy S4 and her flash was virtually blindingly bright in the same situation. Then there's the issue about losing camera performance if you decide to root (apparently some of the low light level camera algorithms are DRM protected and the DRM keys get wiped when you root).

I just wouldn't go for a sony handset again - the phone design simply can't handle real-world stresses.

Just to be fair though, the screen's pretty good (in terms of brightness - you really can use it at minimal levels inside, which I'm sure helps massively with battery drain - I'm not commenting on resolution / PPI). I've found the battery performance to be simply great (probably the best feature for me). However, I'm realistic about usage (i.e. I don't have GPS, wireless and data on unless I need it, I typically pop phone into airplane mode overnight, etc - for me the biggest drains on batteries come from the display and the cellular radio). I got 4 days out of it, with approximately 40 mins worth of charging (because of wired syncing with my desktop). Admittedly for the last 30% of battery I put it onto stamina mode. Note this wasn't high level usage, just phonecalls, texts, some browsing, twitter, some facebook / youtube... but definitely not constant, screen-active usage.

The CPU's pretty strong too. Transitions between homescreens is super slick. I've not had slow down at any point. I haven't tried playing games with it though, beyond low-graphically taxing apps. Not too much bloatware and you can disable certainly some of it. Charging is good on it. I've got copilot as my satnav on it and a 1A car charger still produced a net positive charge rate (even though the sony charger is 1.5A). Charging from empty to full, with phone switched off is around 2.5 hours.

I hope this helps you a bit.

Cheers,

Gary