I bought this phone because of it's size factor. Phone runs very well, I have not have any problems with it's performance, it handles every task with ease. My only two complaints about the phone is 1. I think the ring volume on the phone is a little low, wish it was a tad louder, 2. Good luck finding a good screen protector for this unit, I have not as of yet, the edges are slightly curved so a glass protector will just not fit right. Camera takes very nice photos and as I said it's nice to have a phone that I place in my pocket and really not even know it's there. Battery life is also very good, I'm getting 2 days of moderate use out this little beast.
Posted by catch
It's hard to find a quality compact phone to use with one hand, but Sony is the only company that still makes them at this quality level. My last phone was the Sony Z3 compact and this one is a perfect replacement. Maybe doesn't have the top end features like the flagship phones, but it has everything I need. Snappy, simple UI, top notch camera, excellent battery life, and storage expandable. I also got this phone at a great price of $350. It was a steal. The glossy body is slippery, but I solved the issue by applying a clear skin made by Skinomi and now it has the perfect grip.
This review is from Sony - XPERIA X Compact 4G LTE with 32GB Memory Cell Phone (Unlocked) - Blue Mist
Posted by endaugust
The X compact is truly a compact phone which feels right at home in your hand. The rounded sides makes it comfortable to hold. The front and back curve towards the edges giving it a unibody like design. From the top or bottom the device's outline resembles that of a usb-c port. The compact size is complimented by its light construction of just 135 grams. Sony went with an all plastic construction which is glossy and has a ceramic look to it as well. Previous Sony compact devices were IP certified, no water resistance or water proofing here though. It contains a mid range Snapdragon 650 processor and an Adreno 510 gpu. Though its not flagship, it flys through the Android OS. It handles multitasking like a champ with its 3gb of ram and unlike last years 810, the 650 doesnt get hot and throttle it's performance. Here are some benchmarks and as you can see its almost comparable in performance to the 810. Games were smooth when playing a couple of titles. Loading times were a bit slow but once loaded it ran just fine. Up front you are presented with a surprisingly great display. It is 720p which is just fine for a 4.6" screen. So gaming and media content wont be the best experience but it is still enjoyable. With screen specs like these, it just means the cpu/gpu doesn't have to work as hard to push as many pixels either. Colors are vibrant, blacks are more black than I've seen on other displays that are LCD. Viewing angles are good with no real color shift. It is decently bright in daylight use too but wish it was brighter. Would've liked to see the screen get dimmer as well for night time or include a night time mode to rid of the blue color. But Sony does include a screen image enhancement capability in case you want more true or vivid colors. When typing on the phone, I found my thumbs to be a bit cramped but you grow accustomed quickly. Flanking the screen you are provided dual stereo speakers which sound surprisingly good but volume output is lacking, especially when there is background noise. Audio doesnt get distorted at higher volumes though. You can even feel the vibrations of the speakers at full volume while holding the phone. It is appreciated to have this considering most flagships and larger phones dont even have this feature. The only downside is it's easy for lint and other debris to find its way into these areas and easily noticeable on the blue or white variant. Audio in general is fantastic. Whether its listening with headphones, the speakers or recording audio. The X compact supports high bit rate audio recording. Sony includes audio profile adjustments when headphones are plugged in and different audio settings, which give you a great deep and rich audio experience. It even tries to upsample low bitrate audio. A lower res screen and a mid range chipset both aide in battery life. The X compact packs a 2700mAh battery which got me through a full day of mild to slightly heavy usage. thanks to Android Nougat with doze on the go and some of Sony's doings, this resulted in consistent 5hr to 6.5hr sot but your mileage may vary. If you do run low on juice, you can easily recharge using the Quick charge 3.0 and dont have to fiddle with plugging in your cable a certain way with USB-C either. Something the X compact adopted from its bigger brother, the XZ, was the camera. It uses the same 23MP sensor. It even includes the laser autofocus and RGBC-IR sensor for providing accurate white balance and colors in photos and videos. Photos come out sharp and colors are accurate and quite vivid but not overly saturated. You can easily and quickly access the camera by pressing and holding the dedicate camera shutter from anywhere in the OS. This button also has half press focus capabilities when taking photos. The camera also has object tracking to keep focus on subjects. Though Sony touts 5 axis stabilization, this only applies when taken macro photos which you can see in the corner of the view finder. HDR is only available in manual mode though which is unfortunate. The 5MP front facing camera takes good shots, colors are rich but it is not the widest angle lense. Video quality is great but limited by the chipset. Therefore no 4K or slow motion recording. Where the camera struggles is in low light. Lots of noise is introduced and lighting gets washed out. You lose detail and in some cases takes just a hair longer to take the shot. Software is quite close to stock Android, which is an improvement over Sony's older software. The OS runs fast without a hiccup. Ability to change themes is nice if you are into that sort of thing. Added features such as, double tap to walk or sleep, stamina modes for extending battery life. There is some Sony bloat which you can disable if you choose. I wish Sony would have just used Google's apps: dialer, calculator, clock, etc versus including their own to use. Unfortunately, for the US model the fingerprint scanner is disabled in software. This can be easily changed via a firmware flash to the UK software. Once done, the fingerprint scanner works fast and very accurately. The side mounted scanner is convenient no matter how you hold the device or if its sitting on a desk. With 32gb of internal storage, it doesnt leave you with much room to store videos or music. Sony does include expandable storage up to 256gb but I was disappointed that there was no native adoptable storage. Earpiece quality was very clear and able to get loud enough to hear in louder environments. I had no signal issues on Tmobile. It does come carrier unlocked for GSM, it supports important bands for tmobile and att. Bluetooth connected very quickly to my devices and GPS was accurate and quick to lock on. The original price tag of $500 is steep for this device, but at $400 or $350 that its going for now, it is a much better deal. In a large competitive market of $400 smartphones the Sony Xperia X compact is an easy recommendation if you want a small device and a great camera. If you must have the latest flagship specs and a large screen, look elsewhere.
This review is from Sony - XPERIA X Compact 4G LTE with 32GB Memory Cell Phone (Unlocked) - White
Posted by Cpanton
Customers are positive about the compact size, camera, and battery life of the XPERIA X Compact 4G LTE. They appreciate the convenience of its compact size, the quality of the camera, and the long battery life.