[Xperia Z3 Compact Accessories] phroenix:
Disclaimer: Evolutive Labs offered pre-orderers a discount for posting

neutral

reviews. This means I already decided to buy this product before the offer was made & my purchase decision was in no way affected by this proposition - as it was made after I had already paid for it, I was not offered a free sample or anything & I am / will try to be impartial & objective.

Ordinarily I would not post this, but after reading some user reviews I think it will add balance for current, prospective & future owners of this & any other supported devices - also makes it easier to find in searches. Also, apologies for picture quality!

The kit was received in a sturdy envelope, it included some nice packaging with product details & application instructions, the screen protectors, cloth, card to help apply, dust removal stickers (very useful). Here is a picture of the contents - I opted for front & back protectors:

From what I've seen, this seems like a standard selection of tools provided by most high end (possibly low end?) suppliers, but its all useful stuff & much more than you get in the box with the supplied protector from Sony (if you get one!). Note: all these items can easily be substitued with makeshift items you have around the house e.g. credit card, sellotape, tissue paper, but its nice & convenient that its all provided as a kit.

Application

I found it very easy to apply the screen protector. Youtube how to do this & you get a lot of tips! Evolutive labs have a good video themselves, which is reassuring. The trickiest bit is aligning everything up. My advice is

take your time

. This is the first screen protector I've ever applied with zero bubbles at the end & it wasn't luck because I did front & back. The dust removal stickers are essential here because after you have wiped the screen, then dabbed it with the sticker you will still inevitably end up with some stubborn area down the side edge or slap bang in the middle of the screen because you are

taking your time

to line it up, so some dust might get in. You will need to get the sticker underneath the protector to dab the sticky part of the protector & the screen to get rid of the dust. If there is no dust, there are no bubbles - you can push the air out to the sides - use the card or the cloth to do this. Note: I read one person found that it wasn't sticking / someone else did wet application - this is not necessary. Be 100% sure you have peeled off the correct side (labelled 'Back' iirc). I messed up aligning the front 2-3 times so had to peel it off & do it again (don't be afraid to do this if you're a perfectionist but try to avoid it), it still stuck down fine after all that. What I did find was that the 'Front' tab used to pull the front off covered the cutout for the sensors, so that part had to be aligned blind - you have to use some other points of reference (front camera, speaker, frame...) which made it a little tricky. The back was much easier, the flash is small so get that little circle cutout right & make sure its straight & you're good to go.

Other things I noticed: when pulling off the front sticker off the protectors, it had a tendency to pull the protector off that corner at the same time so be careful with this - don't undo all your hard work right at the end. I slid the cloth in behind the tab to make sure the protector stayed stuck down as I removed the front - you will see some air bubbles appear as you pull the tab so just push them out to keep it stuck down. Also, after I took the front off the protector I noticed some small "scratches" around the cutouts on both front & back protectors. Was disappointed with this at first, but after a few days use they seem to have disappeared (self-repairing!, jk), so don't know what that was about (see pics).

Now its on

The screen still looks superb with the protector on. It feels really smooth under the finger using the touchscreen. It does pick up fingerprints but these usually wipe themselves off in my pocket. It is a big improvement over no protector at all. Also, you can only really tell on the back that there are fingerprints at all because of that screen up front - but again, easy to wipe off if you're a bit OCD. I can't actually comment on the impact protection because I haven't dropped it & don't intend to do this intentionally as this is my main phone but if it happens by accident I'll update this with the results - regardless of whether the screen breaks or not. It has been mentioned already, I will mention it here, the screen on my phone without the protector is very flush with the frame, so with the protector on I notice it is very slightly raised above the frame. This means when you grabbing your phone out of your pocket & you pick it up from the side you can feel the edge of the protector - I wouldn't say its sharp but you do notice the edge. It would have been nice if it was rounded at the edge - maybe the tempered glass protectors are like that? If your device has the screen slightly recessed from the frame you won't have this feeling as it is very slight - the screen protector itself is very thin.

Here are some more pictures:

Front top:

The bits at the top edge that look like bubbles are actually reflections - it does maintain the high gloss look of the bare glass, plus I'm not a good / patient enough photographer to get the right shot!

Front bottom:

Front from afar:

Barely can tell there is a screen protector on this. All I would improve is making the speaker a proper cutout i.e. surround it with protector, rather than the U shaped cut - I think all protectors for this phone are like that at the moment - hopefully someone improves that part of the design, then it will be really stealthy.

Back top:

(Again with the reflection looking like a small bubble strip!)

Back bottom:

Nice and flush

Back from afar:

This is really well done, cannot tell its there

Strange self-repairing scratches around the cutouts:

Conclusion

Pros:

Get everything you need to apply it in the pack

Easy to apply, nice & sticky, even after a few attempts

Feels great under the finger

No visible impact on screen quality

Cons (hopeful improvemets):

Nice to have a proper cutout for speakers

Edge could be smoother / rounded

Two more dust removal stickers in the pack would be ideal

Price for front & back might put some people off

I never really understood tempered glass protectors - essentially you're protecting glass with...glass. Maybe I'm missing something here so missing out but everyone has their preference, as long as you are happy at the end of the day. I'm very happy with this product, so hopefully it lasts the lifetime of the phone! If you made it this far, thanks for reading, if you would like to get this, buy direct from the makers Evolutive Labs - Rhinoshield for the Z3 Compact