Sony Xperia Z5 Compact vs. Sony Xperia Z3 Plus: better camera in the smaller Sony handset but it lags in RAM

(Sony)Sony Xperia Z5 Compact (left) vs Sony Xperia Z3 Plus (right)

Sony released three great smartphones recently and with the Xperia Z5 compact being the smallest among the trio, it is expected that the device will be a favorite among those who prefer smaller smartphones. But for those who want the Xperia Z5's specs but want a bigger handset, its bigger sibling, the Xperia Z3 , is a good option.

Design

While the Xperia Z3 offers very few new design features, it looks and feels premium, as it has a metal frame with glass on its front and back. The frame slightly overlaps the glass and it has additional nylon coating on the corners. There is no fingerprint scanner on the device, but on the Z5 Compact, it is integrated into the power button, located on the side of the device. The Z5 Compact, has a metal frame like its competitor, but its glass is frosted instead of glossy and it does not have protection on its corners. As for colors, the Xperia Z3 comes in black, white, green and copper while the Z5 Compact comes in white, black, yellow and coral.

Display

The bigger Xperia Z3 has an edge in this category, as it comes with a 5.2-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels and a density of 424 pixels per inch. Its smaller competitor, on the other hand, has a 4.6-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and a density of 323 pixels per inch.

Specs

Both devices have the very best hardware and therefore are equally fast. Each has a Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 chipset coupled with an octa-core CPU comprised of four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and four Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2 GHz along with an Adreno 430 GPU. As for their operating systems, the Xperia Z3 comes with Android 5.0 while the Xperia Z5 Compact runs Android OS 5.1.1.

Memory

There is a memory slot on each device. The Xperia Z3 's slot  supports up to 128 GB of external storage while the Xperia Z5 Compact's version supports up to 200 GB. As for RAM, the Xperia Z5 Compact has 2 GB on board while its competitor has 3 GB.

Camera

The camera on the Xperia Z5 Compact is the all new 23 megapixel version. It has quick autofocus and allows shooting 4K videos. As for the Xperia Z3 , it has a 20.7 megapixel version.

Price

The Sony Xperia Z3 Plus costs $650 on retail websites while the official price tag of the Xperia Z5 Compact has yet to be revealed.

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