We said that September would be a busy month in the world of smartphones and we weren’t wrong! In the run up to Christmas, the big mobile phone companies are keen to show off their latest cutting-edge devices and boost those all important sales in the lead up to the festive season. Sony haven’t disappointed with the launch this month of 2 great new smartphones – the Sony Xperia Z3 and the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.
Sony Xperia Z3
First up is the full size Xperia Z3, the second of Sony’s flagship smartphones to be released this year. Although similar in design and looks to the Z2, it has the advantage of some great new features and enhancements which should prove to be popular with Xperia fans.
The Z2 was a pretty impressive smartphone and the Z3 goes that one step further with upgrades to the robustness of the design – which include toughened nylon corner protectors – and even better water and dust resistance (complying with IP68).
The Z3 display is the same at 5.2-inches and 1080p but there’s been an upgrade on the screen brightness which has improved by 50% and the handset is also more slimline and is lighter.
The rear camera – which is an excellent 20.7-megapixels – now comes with a wide-angle 25mm Sony G lens and has better results in poor light conditions. There’s also optical image stabilisation and SteadyShot software to shake-proof your 4K video recording. New camera modes have been added which include live-streaming to YouTube and the option to film from the front and rear cameras at the same time with Face-In. Another handy addition to the Z3 is Sony’s new Remote Play which hooks up with your PS4 console and offers you the facility to play your PS4 games on your Z3 handset.
Under the cover, Sony have also upgraded the hardware with a Snapdragon 801 2.5GHz processor, 3 GB of RAM and a decent 3100mAh battery. The built-in memory storage is good with either 16GB or 32GB and there’s a microSD slot for increasing it up to 128GB if needed.
Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
The Xperia Z3 Compact is Sony’s second foray into Compact handsets as there was in fact no Z2 model. There’s been little sacrifice in terms of downscaling of specs for the Z3, in fact it shares many of its new features as well as having the same processor and a similar camera.
The Z3 Compact sports a 4.6-inch 720p high definition display which has a respectable resolution of 319 pixels per inch. Like the Xperia Z3 it boasts a better standard of dust and water resistance topped off with a shatter-proof screen.
As we’ve already mentioned the camera is akin to the version included on the full-sized Z3, a 20.7-megapixel camera can be found on the rear of the handset and on the front there’s a good 2-megapixel snapper.
Like the Z3, the Z3 Compact comes with new camera software, Remote Play for PS4 and LifeLog which is Sony’s new health app for monitoring various fitness activities, calorie intake and distances walked/run amongst others.
Despite its smaller size, the Z3 Compact has been fitted with the same Snapdragon 801 quad-core 2.5GHz and 2GB of RAM making it a hugely powerful compact smartphone. There’s 16GB of onboard memory which again is expandable and a 2600mAh battery which is expected to last about 2 days with average usage.
Both the Sony Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact smartphones will come in a range of 4 colour choices which are black, white, copper and silvery-green. We anticipate that we will have both handsets in stock in the next few weeks so look out for some superb deals to be had.
