With the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact, the Japanese manufacturer has launched the latest smartphone in the Compact series. The aim of the Compact series has always been to incorporate the latest technologies into a compact housing. So far the Sony was very well done, but the more powerful the processors become, the bigger the problems are in confined spaces. But what Sony has now achieved, we show in this test.
Design and Workmanship
The somewhat unusual shape of the smartphone is noticeable at first glance. Like many other manufacturers, Sony has now decided against an angular design and rounded off the corners a bit. The back of the phone is now curved as well, so it adapts better to your hand. As it’s hard to overlook, the fingerprint sensor, which Sony had integrated into the power button for some time, has moved under the camera. The height takes some getting used to, but it doesn’t take long until your finger automatically lands on it.
The right side is equipped with a volume rocker at the top. Below this is the power button, which is also very low. So you have to repack the device at least once after unlocking it. Still included is the camera button on the lower right side. This serves to open the camera directly and take pictures with it. Sony unfortunately did without a 3.5 mm jack port and only used a USB 3.1 type C port. All in all, the mobile phone looks very well processed.
The display lies well in the socket and the fact that the back was made of polycarbonate doesn’t bother. But all in all the mobile phone is very global and very fat. It just looks like it’s very hard to hold.
Hardware
| Display | 12.7 cm (5 inch) LCD |
| Resolution | 2160 x 1080 Pixel (483 ppi) |
| Memory | 64 GB |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 |
| GPU | Qualcomm Adreno 630 |
| Dimensions | 135 x 65 x 12.1 mm |
| Weight | 168 g |
| back camera | 19 MP f/2 with Triple Sensor Technology, Motion Eye Technology, 3D Scan, Super Slow Motion |
| Front camera | 5 MP, Selfie 3D scan |
| Battery | 2870 mAh |
| connectivity | WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz) MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 (LE up to 2 Mbps), USB type C connector, NFC, GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BeiDou, LTE Cat. 18 |
| Price | € 299.99 * |
Camera
The camera of the XZ2 Compact is the highlight of the smartphone. It is not a dual or triple camera, but the back camera takes pictures with a resolution of 19 megapixels. The pictures are razor sharp and even with little light there are good pictures. Sony has in addition to the Motion Eye technology, which serves as an anti-distortion effect, also the triple sensor technology. This offers a proactive focus and also images taken after a fast movement offer good quality. In addition, the camera offers a 5-axis image stabilizer.
The videos of the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact are recorded at a resolution of up to 4K with HDR. In addition to slow motion at 120 frames per second, Sony has also added slow motion at 960 frames per second. The images are also very good here, but this recording can only be started at the push of a button, which makes the perfect timing almost impossible.
The front camera itself is more than sufficient for a resolution of 5 megapixels and also the image quality leaves nothing to be desired.
Performance & Benchmarks
Inside, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with eight cores provides the necessary computing power and with four gigabytes of RAM, the processor also has enough RAM available. The internal flash memory is generously dimensioned at 64 gigabytes for everyday use and the average consumer and can also be expanded with up to 400 gigabytes via a MicroSD card if required. But in order to draw a comparison to other current devices, we have tested the performance with various benchmarks.
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | OpenGL Manhattan | OpenGL Car Chase | T-Rex |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 11,0 | 7,3 | 42,0 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 4,4 | 2,1 | 0,0 |
| 3 | UMi London | 0,0 | 0,0 | 7,3 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 3,4 | 0,0 | 11,0 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 46,0 | 20,0 | 59,0 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 9,6 | 0,0 | 35,0 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 32,0 | 14,0 | 60,0 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 10,0 | 3,6 | 22,0 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 9,6 | 3,5 | 22,0 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 11,0 | 3,9 | 22,0 |
| Smartphone | OpenGL Manhattan | OpenGL Car Chase | T-Rex |
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | Sling Shot | Sling Shot Extreme | Ice Storm Unlimited | Ice Storm Extreme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 1.348 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 284 | 6.816 | 4.361 | |
| 3 | UMi London | 0 | 2.827 | 1.951 | |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 161 | 3.710 | 2.333 | |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 2.416 | 0 | 0 | |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 1.023 | 15.606 | 9.343 | |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 2.688 | 29.138 | 13.288 | |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 461 | 13.637 | 8.091 | |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 847 | 13.986 | 8.335 | |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 481 | 9.294 | 5.486 | |
| Smartphone | Sling Shot | Sling Shot Extreme | Ice Storm Unlimited | Ice Storm Extreme |
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 4.115 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 2.892 |
| 3 | UMi London | 2.475 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 2.600 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 5.550 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 3.975 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 6.431 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 4.594 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 4.889 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 3.183 |
| Smartphone | Score |
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | AnTuTu Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 22.297 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 37.569 |
| 3 | UMi London | 22.297 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 29.251 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 33.943 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 84.997 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 139.020 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 63.206 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 66.149 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 45.024 |
| Smartphone | AnTuTu Score |
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | Single-Core | Multi-Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 2.719 | 2.618 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 1.063 | 1.563 |
| 3 | UMi London | 685 | 1.146 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 820 | 1.298 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 3.585 | 3.271 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 2.167 | 3.731 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 3.270 | 4.519 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 1.433 | 2.661 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 1.444 | 2.279 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 1.205 | 2.164 |
| Smartphone | Single-Core | Multi-Core |
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 2.803 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 2.697 |
| 3 | UMi London | 2.162 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 1.794 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 4.569 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 5.869 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 7.316 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 3.325 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 3.461 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 2.914 |
| Smartphone | Score |
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | Single-Core | Multi-Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 1.115 | 4.376 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 602 | 2.468 |
| 3 | UMi London | 371 | 1.064 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 535 | 1.493 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 1.626 | 3.872 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 1.648 | 4.053 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 1.934 | 5.998 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 830 | 3.004 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 921 | 4.495 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 731 | 2.738 |
| Smartphone | Single-Core | Multi-Core |
Battery
With a capacity of 2870 mAh, the battery is somewhat small. During “normal” use, however, the battery stays on the safe side. However, if you use your smartphone to navigate or play games, you have to find a charging cable early on.
| wdt_ID | Smartphone | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moto X Force | 549 |
| 2 | Neffos C5 Max | 0 |
| 3 | UMi London | 248 |
| 4 | Gigaset GS160 | 442 |
| 5 | Sony Xperia XZ | 391 |
| 6 | Kodak Ektra | 293 |
| 7 | Huawei Mate 9 | 505 |
| 8 | Huawei Nova | 317 |
| 9 | BQ Aquaris X | 553 |
| 10 | Neffos X1 | 345 |
| Smartphone | Score |
Conclusion on the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact Review
With the Xperia XZ2 Compact, Sony has brought a smartphone onto the market that remains significantly smaller than the competition with the latest technology and very good performance. The disadvantage, however, is that the mobile phone is much thicker and is comparatively heavy in the hand. The small detail change to a slightly rounder design is well done, but the positioning of the power buttons and the fingerprint sensor should have been different.
The camera is very good, even if it is not a dual or triple camera, it takes very good and sharp pictures. Only in very bad conditions does it give up, but it doesn’t look better with other devices. The battery is somewhat small, which is probably due to its small size, but is sufficient. All in all, however, you get a very powerful device for relatively little money and in a compact case.
Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
Workmanship
Hardware
Multimedia
Performance
Battery
Value for Money
You get a lot of performance at a reasonable price in a small case, but with some minor flaws.
