Sony Xperia Z1 Compact review: Mini gone big

Synthetic benchmarks

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, unlike the other Android minis, has a full-blown Snapdragon 800 chipset under its hood. No dual-cores or quad Cortex-A7s here. It is running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean rather than 4.4 KitKat, which may hurt it a bit, but we'll see how that works out.

Also, since it has a smaller 720p screen, the Adreno 330 GPU (which is normally used on 1080p devices) will have an easy job.

But let's start with the CPU first. The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact actually manages to beat its big Z1 sibling in the first two tests, but that's probably within the margin of error for the tests. Geekbench 3, however, shows a more noticeable difference. The Z1 Compact is a millimeter thicker than the big Z1, has Sony improved the cooling of the chipset?

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• LG G Flex
  99
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  99
• LG G2
  99
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  104
• Sony Xperia Z1
  115
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  115
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• LG Nexus 5
  146
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• HTC One mini
  293

Linpack

Higher is better

• LG G Flex
  1102
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  1081
• LG G2
  1054
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1034
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  1010
• Sony Xperia Z1
  1004
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• HTC One
  646
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• LG Nexus 5
  393
• HTC One mini
  320

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  2968
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• Apple iPhone 5s
  2561
• LG Nexus 5
  2453
• LG G Flex
  2254
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869
• HTC One mini
  887

The answer may be "yes" since the Z1 Compact proceeds to win the Quadrant and AnTuTu 4 full-system benchmarks. We also ran Basemark X by Rightware - this test promises to circumvent the ways phones detect benchmarks and boost their clock speeds.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  21618
• LG G Flex
  20521
• Sony Xperia Z1
  20388
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  20052
• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• HTC One
  11746
• LG Nexus 5
  8844
• Oppo N1
  8099
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• HTC One mini
  6048

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• LG G Flex
  35831
• LG G2
  35444
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  34527
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Sony Xperia Z1
  30850
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  29185
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  27613
• HTC One
  26389
• LG Nexus 5
  25097

Basemark X

Higher is better

• LG Nexus 5
  985
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  961
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  931
• LG G2
  879

3D graphics should really be a strength for the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact with its beefy GPU and 720p screen (that's less than half the pixels of a 1080p screen). In off-screen performance, the Z1 Compact is in line with the Android flagships and virtually matches the iPhone 5s.

In on-screen performance, the Z1 Compact jumps ahead by a health margin and stays with the iPhone (which has nearly the same screen resolution, just a bit lower).

A lighter 3D engine like Unreal that powers Epic Citadel runs into the 60fps software limit. Snapdragon does almost 60fps at 1080p as well, so we're skipping this benchmark.

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• LG Nexus 5
  23
• Sony Xperia Z1
  23
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• Apple iPhone 5s
  23
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  22
• LG G Flex
  22
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  6.4
• HTC One mini
  5.6

GLBenchmark 3.0 Manhattan (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  9.7
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  9
• LG Nexus 5
  8.5

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (on-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  37
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  34
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• LG G2
  22

GLBenchmark 3.0 Manhattan (on-screen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  10
• LG Nexus 5
  9.3

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Meizu MX3
  58.8
• Oppo N1
  58.8
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  58.2
• LG G Flex
  56
• Sony Xperia Z1
  54.9
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  54.9
• LG G2
  51
• LG Nexus 5
  49.1
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  47.7
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  37.2
• HTC One
  35.6
• HTC One Max
  34.9

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact shows stellar performance so far, but it gets more average results when it comes to web benchmarks. The JavaScript performance is the usual from Snapdragon 800, though Samsung seems to have an ace up Note 3's sleeve. Still, the Z1 Compact finishes this round of benchmarks with a win in Vellamo.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  403
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  587
• Apple iPhone 5
  694
• Apple iPhone 5c
  704
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  750
• LG Nexus 5
  827
• Sony Xperia Z1
  845
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  855
• LG G2
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• HTC One
  1174
• HTC One mini
  1375

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  3549
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3041
• Apple iPhone 5
  2825
• Apple iPhone 5c
  2799
• Oppo N1
  2769
• LG Nexus 5
  2745
• LG G2
  2718
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  2600
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2419
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2398
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• HTC One mini
  2164

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  2996
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2944
• LG G2
  2908
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2904
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2853
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2019

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact has shown true flagship performance and even though the new batch of flagships is months away, they'll probably still run Snapdragon 800 or similar. More importantly, unlike competing minis (they know who they are), the Z1 Compact honors the name of its big sibling, so you won't feel like you're getting a mid-range phone with a shiny name.

Google Now at your command

Google Now gives you a short overview of information it believes is relevant to you right now. Going to work in the morning? Google Now knows this and lets you know if there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office, and offers you a re-route.

It can interpret a lot of things from your search history as well. If you've been searching for, let's say, your favorite football team, Google Now will prepare a card showing you the next match the team is playing and will provide score updates once the game begins.

Google Now

Google has also integrated Voice Actions. They can handle stuff like sending messages (SMS or email), initiating a voice call, asking for directions, taking a note or opening a site. Google Now can also launch apps, manage your calendar and look for nearby places of interest and stuff like movie openings in theaters.

Google Now on the Xperia Z1 Compact gets activated with an upward swipe from a press-and-hold of the Home button. You can either type or talk to it and the app will give you one of its info cards (if available) and read out its contents (you can disable this in the app settings). If there's no card to help with the answer to your question Google Now will simply initiate a Google web search instead.

We have a dedicated review of some popular voice assistants, where you can learn even more about Google Now. Just follow this link.