Sony Xperia Z5 Compact SIM-Free Smartphone (UK Version) - Coral

Superb phone. Very, very fast. Of course it puts heat out when you are first booting it - it's massively powerful in a tiny package. Tough and waterproof. Dropped it a bunch of times onto tiles - with a hard shell on because I am not stupid and I keep a case on it all the time - with no problems with screen breakage or any kind of damage. Sony make very tough phones in a sleek, even pretty form. Fingerprint sensor works great and I remember my PIN as an alternative security because why wouldn't you? With the latest Android it's easy to turn off all the annoying Sony garbage if you don't want it - personally I really appreciate the Walkman music player and I'm sure other people would like at least some of the other guff Sony load for your convenience. My mates all have Apple phones and they all think this phone is nicer to look at and hold. What more can I say, buy one.

Sony do not get enough recognition they do great smartphones with best Android battery life it is just their cameras always suffer. Under medium conditions nearly get 2 days battery. The cam is a little better than Z3 compact but still can have over sharpening oil painting look.There is plenty of customisation and every now and then video things pop up and the phone has stitched photos/vids into a mini movie type thing. It is solid built 8/10 audio quality through headphones and will not really drive high impedance earphones, it only has medium volume with my 32 ohm TT-Pod earbuds,earpiece is bit tinny in phone calls. Flash is same as Z3C not that bright. Screen detailed colourful but only giving it 6/10 for screen legibility in sunlight outdoors. Overall competent, sturdy, stable good battery life phone.

I purchased this phone at Christmas as a present for my partner. The phone itself is okay, excellent battery life and build quality is superb. However, there is a horrible echo when using the speaker phone. It seems to echo everything back to the other party when they speak. She is on her second device, and I'm sad to report that the issue still persists. Aparently Sony are not doing much about it: https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Xperia-Z5-Z5-Compact-Z5-Premium/Sony-Xperia-Z5-Compact-has-an-echo-when-making-calls/td-p/1058981/page/6 Shame that their Support and Service has let them down on what could have been a beautiful all round of a phone. Will be sending back for a full refund.

Received Sony Xperia Z5 Compact yesterday. Ordered despite Which? having removed it's 'Best Buy' status due to brand reliability issues - my error. Worked briefly. Quite tricky to insert SIM card but may be to do with waterproofing. Glitch appeared in software leaving phone mic muted and unable to unmute after a few hours use. I have been talking to Sony customer support through the morning. They suggest actioning steps sent by them on email. I am not the most tech savy person, however, this is like entering a distant Android world where only Geeks could make tech work. Not intuitive, not a patch on interface on Samsung/Google/Motorola/Apple products. Unclear (to me) directions on various web pages. Just given up on 3rd attempt to update software. Finally software update installed at 4th attempt, and lots of help over phone from Sony. BUT phone not fixed!! Genuinely the worst experience I've ever had with a new phone. Very unfortunate as the camera, the battery life, waterproofing - all great features in what is a pretty cool device - just not any use as a phone. Sony, you should be able to do better than this surely? Amazon returns exemplary as ever. Update 29th January 2016. Second phone is still working, and I am really getting to appreciate the features, but I thought best to check 2yr warranty due to Which? having flagged the high fail rate. Logged into my account with Sony to discover the returned faulty phone had balance of 24 mth warranty, 1yr and 50 weeks to be precise left to run. Whereas the replacement only had some 20 mths warranty. On contacting Sony customer services they stated warranty is to reseller/Amazon not the end purchaser. I suggested this probably contravened retail legislation in the UK. Next email from Sony stated new phone now did have 2yrs warranty - to be verified by proof of purchase - not by the actual stated warranty bizarrely. A smallish point but could be worth checking as may be the difference between a free repair and a billed one. Phone really is very good to use. Small keyboard a bit tricky after larger phones, but camera is superb and waterproofing already paying dividends on wet cycle rides. Battery lasts a day of solid use (12% left) so perhaps two days if very lightly used could be possible - not as claimed but vast improvement over my last phone.

Absolutely great phone, size, features, camera - if it didn't get warm enough to toast marshmallows on. During 1st time setup it got very hot while downloading all the apps and syncing contacts etc - I could forgive that, it's not really normal everyday behaviour. But during normal browsing/usage it gets noticeably warm and when I tried a 4k video (once I got past the "This device might overheat and shutdown" warning) it got really warm, really quickly. A browse of internet and there are a lot of sites complaining about the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor getting hot. I'd read a few reviews that mentioned this but thought it was for heavy download/gaming - not what I'd planned to use phone for. But it even gets warm in just general everyday use. It's not going to burn you or set fire to your house but the constant heating/cooling cycles and the device running hot will not be great for component stability & therefore long-term viability of a >£400 phone. I decided to ditch it and get my money back before that could become my problem. As a chip design engineer myself, kind of amazed they are shipping regardless. Don't know what to go for now, most other recent Androids are enormous.

I started with a Iphone 4 way back in 2010 and then moved onto Note 2 after 3 years. My Note 2 was amazing until it started to develop issues recently. So I had to use my old iphone 4 as a stop gap briefly. It made me realize that though the note 2 experience has been very good, I have been 'heaving' a heavy phone around for years now. Iphone 4 size was so compact that I hardly felt it on me. So I started looking for compact phones again. Iphone SE was an option, But having got one for my partner recently and my keenness to get an android phone (SD card, OTG connectivity and few other freedom aspects with android which I enjoyed with note 2), I decided to go with Z5 compact, the other contender in the compact space. I had read both the positive and negative reviews. The key thing I was looking for was a) battery life b)compact size c)External storage d)dedicated camera button e)fingerprint sensor and of course android experience. Having used the phone for a week now, I feel it is pretty good - makes me feel that this phone is really overlooked. - Battery life - I have not updated to Marshmallow yet for the fear of losing stamina mode. I hear that a new build is now available for marshmallow to bring stamina mode back, but will wait for some more time until this is rolled out widely. But for now, I get around ~26 hours with ~5 hours screen time (in stamina mode). Which in my experience is pretty good. Not as good as Sony claims ~2 days, but still good.e - Fingerprint sensor - contrary to many negative reviews, I have had a very good experience with the sensor. I configured my left and right hand fingers and the positioning of the sensor could not have been more apt. The only time it did not work is when my hands were wet. - Compact size - The phone is very convenient for one handed use. - Camera - I am not a geek in photography - just a normal user, but I should say that I expected more from the camera. Seems average to me for the advertised 23 mp. Still have to figure out the settings (have been reading up some articles on this) - Heating issue - This has been the most talked about issue. The device gets hot only when the usage is heavy (recording 4k, trying AR mode of camera etc.,) but I have felt the same with iphone SE and Note 2 as well under similar usage conditions. So I am perfectly fine with it for now (will update if this changes with time). It's been a week till now and I would recommend this phone with no qualms. Just make sure that you get a case when you order the phone as it slips out of your hand very easily. Will edit my experience after a month or so.

First impressions: 1) beautiful phone, just the right size, feels great in my hands 2) fingerprint sensor works flawlessly and really fast 3) phone is fast 4) overheats all the time. It's just st not funny. It's getting more and more hot while I'm writing thus review here 5) camera? Disappointed. Really disappointed (BUT I tried it indoors only with my children). It does not perform as good as my LGG4 did. 7 out of 10 of.my children's pictures came out bad and I have an experience with lots of smartphones now including iPhone 5s, LGG4, iPhone 6plus. I want to love the camera but I can't. It's just not on the level indoors. Let's see what outdoors shots look like. Verdict: it's still the best phone out there for me, because I just can't use pallets and I want a normal size phone with Android. I hope that my experience with camera will get better with time

So this review is for a specific group of people (that I was previously a member of): worried Z3 Compact owners. If you don't have the Z3 Compact (Z3C), then the review is simply yes, get this phone, it's powerful with great battery life and fits easily in the average human hand - these three things cannot be said about any other phone i'm aware of. But for the Z3C owners... So you've got your Z3C, it's a great phone, you heard the Z5C is out - it's good to know that there's a nice new version for when you have to upgrade. But disaster! Some random internet commenter tells you the new Z5C runs warm. Another random internet commenter tells you battery life is shorter. If you had to replace your beloved Z3C, what should you do? As someone who was in that position two months ago, the answer is get the Z5 Compact and don't worry about it. On the "running warm", bear in mind I don't watch many films or play games on my phone. But I surf the web a lot, use a number of apps. The first time I noticed the phone running particularly warm was tonight when I was downloading a file. That was 10 mins ago, the phone is back to cool and battery is down by 1%. Basically, it's nothing. Even when it was warm ... we are talking warm here. Not hot. It's not uncomfortable, it's just noticeable. As for battery life, I haven't noticed the difference. I'm definitely avoiding the system upgrade to Marshmallow as it lacks Stamina mode (Sony have said they are working to get Stamina into Marshmallow, I'm waiting till they do) but on Lollipop I don't notice the battery life difference between the Z3C & Z5C. So my summary is this. If you don't have the Z3C or Z5C, then yes, buy this phone, it's great and has unmatched battery life for a phone of its screen size & power. If you have the Z3C, I wouldn't force an upgrade (though personally I really like the fingerprint scanner. It doesn't always work, but works more than enough for me to feel log-in is now, on average, much easier), but when you need to get a new phone, don't worry about the Z5C switch. The changes are small, and apart from the volume rocker being less convenient, are in the right direction.