Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact review

Almost all new flagship phones have large screens and require two hands to us. Middle Eastern consumers looking for smaller but equally powerful phones have only had one option- the Xperia Compact. 

And when Sony chose to not bring that to the Middle East last year, many people were left disappointed. Thankfully Sony has made a u turn on their decision and the Xperia XZ2 Compact is on sale across the UAE.

If you want top specs and a phone that won’t stretch your fingers or your pocket lining, the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is one of your best options, as you don’t see hardware this impressive in other phones with 5-inch screens.

Its camera and chipset will smoke those of just about any other phone this size, but unless you go pixel-peeping at its photos or notice the milliseconds it shaves off app loads, you can get a similar experience for under half the price.

Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact price and availability

• Costs AED 2,599
• Available now

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is one of Sony’s top phones for 2018. It was announced at the MWC conference in February 2018, alongside its big brother the Sony Xperia XZ2.

It's now available through power retailers in the UAE and costs what used to be the standard price for a high-end phone, before the ceiling rose to accommodate mobiles like the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus. In short, you’ll have to shell out AED 2,399 for it.

There aren't many direct rivals for the XZ2 Compact. No other big phone brand makes Android phones this small with top-end components. It’s just not done, giving it an amazing edge for those who still just don’t like big phones.

Key features

• Compact build with high-end specs
• Strong 19MP camera

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact shares many features with the larger, more expensive Xperia XZ2. It’s what makes this small phone so unusual.

These features include Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 845 chipset, a 19MP camera, 64GB of storage and a screen capable of playing HDR video. That’s the kind of footage you might watch on a high-end TV.

You simply don’t get this sort of hardware in other phones this small. Your closest option from Samsung is the Galaxy S9, which is a little wider and a lot longer, though considerably thinner.

This combination of top-quality internals and a small frame is exactly what some are after. 

This is a great phone for the right buyer, particularly as Sony has made real improvements to the camera performance this year. Well, aside from the front camera, which is surprisingly unremarkable. However, you do have to care, a lot, about its small, cuddly frame.

Design

• Tubby and rounded rather than blocky
• Plastic back doesn’t feel that expensive
• Fingerprint reader yes, headphone jack no

Most phone-makers try to make their handsets as thin as they can. The design goal of the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is not about thinness. Where other flagships stand at 8mm, the XZ2 feels rather chunky at over 12mm.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact has the silhouette of a phone with a 4.5-inch screen. Its actual display measures five inches across, but this is only because it has a 'longer' 18:9 aspect display, like so many recent phones.

Screen shape aside, using the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is a pleasant callback to years past, when we didn’t have to stretch our thumbs. This has been the key appeal of Sony’s Compact phones since the series began in 2013.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact’s design is different to the Xperia XZ1 Compact, though. It’s no longer a rectangular brick, using much smoother curves across its back for a palm-hugging feel.

It’s oddly similar to the style of the very first Motorola Moto G, an instantly lovable budget classic. The obvious issue: that was a much cheaper phone.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact has a plastic back, which doesn't necessarily give it an immediately impressive feel. Its sides are aluminum, but the feel is defined by the smooth, plastic curves.

Considering its thickness, it is disappointing the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact does not have a headphone jack. You have to use wireless headphones or a little adaptor (included) that plugs into the USB-C socket on the bottom. It’s as clear a sign as any that phones with 3.5mm sockets are headed for extinction.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact does have water resistance, though. It’s IP68 certified, meaning it can be dropped in water without damage.

There’s also a fingerprint scanner on the back, which has moved from Sony’s traditional side position in the Xperia XZ1 Compact. A rear scanner is more convenient.

Screen

• 18:9 screen cuts down wasted space
• Ultra-saturated color
• Very bright

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact’s display is another aspect changed for this year. It’s an 18:9 aspect screen, leaving smaller screen-less borders at its top and bottom.

It is also a much higher-spec display than the XZ1 Compact’s. That phone has a 720p resolution. This is a wide Full HD screen, with a resolution of 1080 x 2160. It’s very sharp, with density of 483 pixels per inch.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact also has the spec bragging points of the larger Xperia XZ2. It supports HDR, and Sony’s X-Reality engine upscales standard dynamic range content to HDR too.

Sure enough the screen has extremely vibrant color, excellent maximum brightness and great contrast for an LCD, although when tilted there is some visible greying of blacks.

If you find the out-of-the-box color too vibrant, or not vivid enough, you can change it too. The standard mode is a great balance of saturation and accuracy, but the Xperia XZ2 Compact also has a relaxed-looking sRGB mode and a Super Vivid one, dripping in color.

Such tech does seem wasted on such a small display, though. Watching Netflix or a long YouTube video is going to be more fun on a larger but poorer 6-inch screen than a high-end 5-inch one like this. 

Also factor in that most content is at 16:9 ratio, that leaves the extreme left and right parts of the screen unused, effectively reverting to a 4.5-inch-ish display size for watching media. 

Battery life

• Acceptable stamina
• Supports fast charging
• But there’s no fast charger in the box

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact has a 2,870mAh battery, just a little larger than the 2,700mAh cell of the XZ1 Compact.

We’ve found it fairly easy to get through an entire day day without charge running out before bed time. By 11pm it tends to have around 15% battery left, following plenty of WhatsApp and a few hours of podcast streaming sprinkled through the day.

Standby times are great on the XZ2 Compact meaning that if you don't use your phone frequently, it will last you much longer on a single charge. Following our testing, we pulled the SIM card out of the phone and left it on our desk and five days later, it still had 30% charge left.

Where the phone didn’t hold up that well is in our standard video test, though. We play a 90-minute video at maximum brightness and see how much the battery drains.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact lost 26% which is a lot more than the 17% lost by the XZ1 Compact. This phone’s higher-resolution screen could possibly be blamed for that.

While the phone supports fast charging, you don’t get a fast charger in the box. It’s a standard 5V, 1.5A plug, which isn’t fast by any standard. There’s also no wireless charging. The Sony Xperia XZ2 supports Qi, but this phone does not.

Camera

• High resolution rear camera with decent night shooting
• 4K HDR video capture
• Just okay selfie camera

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact has a rear 19MP camera, the same resolution as the Xperia XZ1 Compact.

Some improvements have been made, though, and this phone is a far better camera than Sony flagships from a couple of years back. At pixel level, the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact’s images look a bit processed though. 

Sony has improved its Auto HDR algorithms, used to balance out bright skies and the foreground without blowing-out highlights. Is it a star? Not quite, however, performance is more consistent than previous years.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact still lacks proper optical image stabilization. Instead it uses a gyro-based system that times the exposure to when your hands are at their stillest.

This isn’t the best night shooter around, but it is one of the best among phones without optical image stabilization. Detail retrieval in dimly lit conditions is surprisingly good, with a fair amount of fine detail visible even at ISO 800. This is the sort of sensitivity the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact might use for a street-lit night scene.

If there’s one thing for Sony to improve other than incorporating true optical stabilization, it is exposure metering. In certain day-lit scenes the Xperia XZ2 Compact ups the exposure a little too much, making photos look washed-out.

Sony has cut down the number of extra modes in its app. You get a manual mode, a selection of creative filters and panorama. The mountain of modes seen in older models, including adding AR dinosaurs to your pics, has disappeared. It’s about time.

Camera samples

There is a separate 3D-scanning app, though, called 3D Creator that was introduced last year. This lets you make 3D models of your face, your friends’ faces and objects, by slowly moving around them with the camera. It’s mostly for fun, but you can make these models into 'Live' wallpapers that turn as you flick between home screens.

You can shoot video at up to 4K resolution with HDR and software stabilization. There’s a little video judder with everything turned on. And for the smoothest results you’ll want to shoot at 1080p, 60 frames per second.

There’s also 960fps super slow motion and the XZ2 Compact lets you record that in 1080p resolution which is higher than what the Huawei P20 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S9 is capable of.

Around the front, the selfie camera is surprisingly basic. It has a 5MP sensor but with a very wide-angle lens, which makes taking group selfies with friends easy. However, it's not the sharpest of the cameras and doesn't capture facial details well.

Interface and reliability

• Runs Android Oreo overlaid with Sony's interface
• Lots of pre-installed apps
• Taking a photo stops audio

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact runs Android 8.0 Oreo with a custom Sony interface on top.

Sony’s used to be one of the less invasive UIs, but these days it’s quite different from standard Android. Google’s interface has a scrolling vertical apps menu. This one uses pages you flick through with left and right swipes.

Like previous versions of the Sony UI, you can re-skin this one with themes. Quite a lot of these cost money, but a handful are included.

Sony has also loaded up the XZ2 Compact with a handful of unwanted apps, the most intrusive of which is the AVG virus protection suite which continuously tries to upsell you a paid version of the service. 

Other third party apps that come pre-installed include Prime Video and Amazon Shopping. Kobo reader is pre-installed. It’s an alternative to the Amazon Kindle store.

There's also quite a few Sony apps such as Lounge (an app packed with promotional offers) and Xperia Assist, which is a help wizard dressed up as a digital assistant. And finally, there are Sony media apps, common to every recent Sony phone.

As the apps menu uses folders, the extent of these additional apps is not too apparent when you actually use the phone. General performance is excellent too.

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact feels fast and responsive. Only one thing annoys. When you take a photo with the camera, any audio playing seems to stop, and doesn’t re-start automatically. That’s just about the only issue we’ve encountered.

Movies, music and gaming

• Decent speaker
• Great gaming performance
• But no small screen phone is that great for games

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is as good a movies and games machine as a 5-inch phone can be. Let’s break it down.

First, it has a good amount of storage. There’s 64GB, leaving you with tens of gigabytes to fill with games and non-streamed films. A microSD slot in the SIM tray lets you add cards of up to 400GB.

The Snapdragon 845 chipset is extremely powerful too. While even mid-range chipsets perform well with 1080 x 2160 screens like this, the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact gets rid of any slight frame rate hitches in high-end games.

For a small phone the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact also has fairly good speakers. There’s a front-facing driver right at the bottom of the screen’s glass, and the earpiece works as a speaker too.

Compared to most other small phones, the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact has thicker mids. This makes podcasts sound better. The speakers are not bass masters, though. Sound is decent, not exceptional.

The limits of gaming and movie-watching come down to the screen size. If you play games all the time or stream video on the way to work, it’s worth considering a bigger phone like the Samsung Galaxy A8. But that phone is 5mm wider and almost 15mm longer.

This highlights the odd contradiction of the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact. In many ways it’s a phone for demanding phone users, but its main appeal also limits how enjoyable things like gaming and movie-watching are.

Performance and benchmarks

• Excellent benchmark performance
• Snapdragon 845 is a top performer
• Gigabit internet ready

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact has a Snapdragon 845 chipset. It has eight Kryo cores, in the standard arrangement. Four are performance cores, four are lower-clocked for everyday use. Along with that, you get 4GB of fast dual-channel DDR4 RAM.

It scores 8,371 in Geekbench 4 which is comparable with the Samsung Galaxy S9. Many more phones are expected to use this chipset in 2018, including the HTC U12 and LG G7.

The Snapdragon 845 also has a 1.2Gbps modem. This is handy if you live in an area with incredibly fast 4G mobile internet. But in most places it doesn’t mean a great deal.

Verdict

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is a solid step forward from the XZ1 Compact in several respects. It has more storage, a higher screen resolution and some camera improvements.

In short, it’s the classic Compact blueprint, updated for 2018 and Sony has done service to people that don't like large phones. Not only is the XZ2 Compact the best phone in this form factor, it a flagship product that has the specs to compete with the best phones out there.

Yes, like every other phone, it could have been better , disappointing front-facing camera and lack of headphone jack holding it back.

Who's this for?

The Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is for people who want a small phone that is still powerful. Small and punchy it is, although make sure you are ready for its chunky build.

Should you buy it?

How much do you care about having a small phone? If that’s your primary concern the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is the most tech-packed option out there. 

It's not necessarily a phone we’d immediately recommend to everyone. High-powered specs and a small screen are an odd combo it today's world but there are takers for it. The XZ2 Compact is a refreshing phone that offers something different. 

Not sold on Sony's latest Compact? Check out the alternatives.

iPhone 8

Apple phones tend to exist on a plane of their own, but the iPhone 8 is a legitimate 'small' phone, with a 4.7-inch screen. The Sony is a couple of millimeters narrower still, though, because while it has a higher inch count, its display aspect is also wider/longer.

The iPhone is a lot slimmer and feels more expensive in-hand though. It’s also more expensive.

• Read the full iPhone 8 review

Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact

What was the last phone in the series like? The Xperia XZ1 Compact does not have an 18:9 screen, so there is more space above and below the screen. Screen area is lesser too, with a 4.6-inch diagonal, and resolution much lower at 720p.

The older phone is thinner, but as it has a block-like shape, you don’t notice this benefit much. However, the screen is less of a battery sap. Also, this phone was never officially released in the Middle East so you'll have to look for an import.

• Read the full Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact review

First reviewed: March 2018