Sony announces Xperia X Compact

Sony officially confirms the release of the Xperia X Compact, writes Marie Brewis

At IFA 2016 Sony unveiled its new Sony Xperia X Compact smartphone, which will go on sale in the UK on 25 September as a smaller version of its Xperia X flagships with mostly high-end specs. Standout specifications include 3GB of RAM, 32GB of built-in storage, and a high-quality 23Mp camera.

Price

Thanks to its plastic build and compact HD screen the Xperia X Compact should command a significantly lower price tag than its bigger brothers. In the past Compact phones have tended to cost around £400 – the Z5 Compact launched at £429.

Features

It might be a ‘Compact’ phone, but the new mini Xperia X’s specs are far from insignificant. There’s a huge 23Mp camera at the rear (5Mp at the front), plus a generous 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (plus microSD support up to 256GB) propping up a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 chip (2x 1.8GHz, 2x 1.4GHz). A fingerprint scanner is built into the power button on the side.

The resolution is just 1280x720, but stretched over a 4.6in LCD panel it should be plenty clear at 319ppi. This is a pocketable phone, just 129x65x9.5mm and 135g.

It runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow (soon to be updated to Nougat) on a 2700mAh battery, which supports Quick Charge 2.0 over USB-C and an intelligent charging system that learns your charging habits and adjusts charging to suit to maximise the battery’s life cycle.