Xperia XZ1 Compact is Sony’s star of IFA 2017

We are delighted to see Sony launch a true Xperia ‘compact’ flagship once again. While the Xperia X Compact from last year was a good device with great performance and battery life, we know that many missed some of the flagship features such as water resistance (something that all previous Compact Xperia phones had).

The Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact announced at IFA earlier today is mostly a no compromise device. It features similar specifications to the Xperia XZ1, including Snapdragon 835 chipset, 4GB RAM, 19MP rear Motion Eye camera with 960 fps slow motion video, the 3D Creator app and IP65/IP68 dust and water resistance.

It wraps all of this in a chassis with a 4.6-inch HD 720p display, including the same sized 2700mAh battery of its bigger brother. We would therefore expect much better battery life for the XZ1 Compact vs. the XZ1 given the smaller display and smaller resolution paired with the same chipset.

For those bemoaning the fact that Sony has not used a 1080p display, we have never found the pixel density to be an issue on the smaller Xperia flagships. In fact, we’d rather take the better battery life due to the handset having to work less harder, rather than the higher resolution display.

In terms of differences to the XZ1, the Xperia XZ1 Compact only has 32GB of internal UFS storage, which would be our only criticism. If the handset included the 64GB storage as seen on the Xperia XZ1 it would have been the icing on the cake. The Xperia XZ1 Compact also has a smaller 8MP front-facing camera (the XZ1 has a 13MP selfie camera), but Sony did see fit to add a super-wide 120 degree angle option to the front. The XZ1 Compact also does not feature a HDR display.

The Xperia XZ1 Compact uses what Sony calls a “strong, anti-twist and bend full-body structure with Glass Fibre reinforced plastic material”, so we don’t see the metallic frame seen in the XZ1.

The Xperia XZ1 Compact has dimensions of 129 x 65 x 9.3mm and weighs 143 grams. The handset will launch with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, when it hits retail in September 2017. There will be a choice of four colours available including Black, White Silver, Horizon Blue and Twilight Pink.