Hi,
First of all I would like to thank Sony for coming to our aid, we who would like to have smaller phones without sacrificing the flagship chipsets and features, by releasing their “Compact” devices for the last couple of years. I love my Xperia Z5 Compact. I was going to stick with my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for a while longer if only it had received Lollipop update, but it hadn’t, and knowing that Sony supported even much older devices like the original Xperia Z up till the latest version of Lollipop, I was compelled to go for a Sony device this time (The reason I intended to stick with my Note 2 initially was that I don’t always, more like never, seek the very latest features and the most powerful chipset at the time, and it’s a huge investment for me to buy a phone each time so I want to stick with what I have as long as possible, considering I buy a flagship every time. That is why getting software updates is crucially important for me. As a die hard Samsung fan, I was really disappointed with Samsung’s software support and found that Sony is doing much better in terms of this issue). I have been using the Xperia Z5 Compact since October 2015 and I realized that I had suffered badly with Note 2’s giant body (since October 2012), Xperia Z5 Compact sort of sizes are just for me! And I liked the almost-stock-Android like user interface Sony has been using. Though, it’s not without its problems and lacks. I would like to mention a few things here and if other users join me in suggesting how things could be better and if this can be forwarded to Sony’s development team to consider implementation that’d be great!
Album and Music Apps:
I have to say, things were much more straightforward back in the Note 2 for me. For instance, Video app is just useless for me. I disabled it and use solely Album app. I used to arrange my photos-videos as folders (albums if you like) and each folder would contain files from different occasions, like “2015 Birthday Party”, “2014 Christmas”, “Hiking, October” sort of thing you see what I mean? However, the Album app, although it’s very good in other ways, is just hopeless! Every time you open it, there is a timeline of all the photos in the device, and you’ll need to open the side window to go to the Folders tab and etc etc. You know how much time consuming and frustrating it is to do that multiple times in a day? I’m not telling you to just remove that Home timeline, but just give us the option to choose what we get to see when we open the app as default, so that Folders tab opens directly every time when I start the Album app please! Same goes for the Music app as well. I seriously hate that Home screen in the Music app. I don’t want your suggestions, “Well you listened to that, so here you go some other tracks you might like”. Please just no!!! All my music are arranged according to their album names and I want to see those albums listed when I open the app as default rather than the stupid home screen now. Just give us the option in the Settings of the apps to choose the default tab ourselves rather than you imposing what you want us to see. Also, please make the Music app keep the tracks with the same album names under the same albums regardless of the name of the artist! For example if I’ve got the whole album of Rihanna now and there are some tracks where artist name is Rihanna feat. BLA BLA BLA, rather than only Rihanna, the Music app shows it as a different album. JUST WHY?! WHY? It’s the same album for God’s sake! Why would you separate it and make the screen more cluttered and mind tiring to navigate around?! Please sort these issues.
CAMERA:
I have to say I’m kind of regretful for not going for an OIS equipped camera phone but I have to say, Z5 Compact’s camera is really good for a non-OIS camera. But, there are problems of course. First of all, I don’t know if I am the only one experiencing this, but there is a SERIOUS shutter lag in my phone. Today’s world is very fast paced and there are things in the daily routine that you might want to capture immediately. However with this phone, it’s quite hard to do that. The photo is taken almost 1-1.5 secs after I push the button and in the mean time I probably shake a little causing the photo to become blurry and the pose I wanted captured is lost for eternity. Where is the 0.03 Autofocus to make sure camera is focussed to take the photo? It loses time both before (Autofocussing) and after I press the shutter (taking and post-processing the photo). This can be sort of counteracted using the on screen shutter rather than using the dedicated shutter button, because when using the button, you actually tend to shake the device due to applying much more force to press the button, ending up with blurry photos. I bought this device being so much happy when I knew it came with a dedicated shutter button. But what’s the point if I can’t take clear photos using it? Also, why can’t we have a full manual control over the settings using resolutions above 8 MP? Why are we stuck at 8 MP? Advertising it as a 23 MP camera phone and not letting us to tweak the capturing settings like ISO or Scene selection at 20-23MP resolution is just sort of, lying! Give us RAW support, give us full manual settings at higher resolutions. Also the issue of “grainy photos” is much more prominent when compared to its rivals, even to its own mid-range brother Xperia M5 (Yes M5 takes almost as good, and somewhat better pictures using the Superior Auto mode than Z5 family)! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS REALLY! Superior Auto quality as well as the shutter speed need much more improvement (can’t deny it takes brilliant photos even with the current dim-witted Manual mode, than the Superior Auto mode, but it’s the latter that you’re going to use to take a photo of your baby taking his first steps, or the squirrel jumping onto your porch etc you know what I mean, no one has time to use the Manual mode in real life, NO ONE!)
Versatile features in the UI:
Although the UI right now is very uncluttered and easy to use, there are thing which may be improved with it. For instance, I use the Flashlight of my device almost every night. It’d be MUCH BETTER if you could implement “Shake to deploy Flashlight” feature like Motorola did with a couple of devices last year. Wake up the phone à Pull down the drawer à Open the Flashlight, sometimes this is just so time consuming, frustrating and hard to do (finding the power button in the dark is quite hard trust me). Where shaking twice to turn on and shaking thrice to turn off the Flashlight much be MUCH MORE TIME EFFICIENT AND EASY!
Also, the features which I miss the most from my Note 2 are Smart Alert and Direct Call features. Smart Alert is when you reach for your phone from somewhere and as soon as you grab it, it vibrates without turning on the screen to let you know that while you were away you received some notifications. It was so useful! Also the other one, Direct Call, is when you have the a contact’s page open or the messaging page for that specific contact is open on the display and without clicking anywhere you just raise it to your ear and as soon as the proximity sensor detects your ear, dials the contact for you. You can’t imagine how useful that was, and it worked 99% of the time flawlessly, so I assume it can be implemented by you successfully Sony.
Accessories:
I have to say, I was disappointed to see neither earphones nor a Quick Charger enabled adapter in the box. I don’t care much about the latter to be honest (but in this competitive business, a minus is a minus Sony, and your devices aren’t exactly very cheap so don’t tell me it’s cheaper due to excluding a Quick Charger and including a regular charger). However, the first is of utmost importance! I was disappointed but nevertheless I went and bought the MDR-NC750 which was released with Z5 Series (and it’s quite expensive…), but what have I got? A brilliant sound quality earphones go down the drain for not having a “three-button-remote-control”. Reason? I would very much like to hear it! I used to navigate around my albums and tracks, as well as adjusting the volume any time using the simple buttons on my old Samsung earphones without having the need to get my phone out of my pocket, on the go! It was dead easy! But now, even for a quick volume adjustment, I have to get the phone out first. Why? I admit the sound quality is AMAZING, but it’s again, inefficient and useless! And it wasn’t cheap! I wish you had released the same earphones with a button array and without the Noise-Cancelling feature if it would make it cheaper to manufacture and included it in the box (even if you wouldn’t include it with the phone, I’d buy it being much happier than I am with the current earphones… Amazing sound quality, but hard to use!!!) and I wouldn’t complain, seriously.
I think that is all. The software optimisation is getting better and better with each update on my Z5C, I can see that, and I love it. It seems to me that heating and battery drain issues are very much decreased with the latest .185 update as well so I have no complaints on that as well. Also I would like to mention, I did not intend to write “Samsung is better than you Sony” kind of thing, not at all! It’s just we expect better, easy to use and efficient features on every new smartphone nowadays and seeing that while going a couple of steps further, I went a few steps back with my upgrade from Galaxy Note 2 to Xperia Z5 Compact, I am just frustrated and in today’s competitive electronics market, you need to win the heart of the every single customer by providing the most versatile UI and features possible if you are to be successful, and guess what, we want you to be successful Sony, we really do! I dreaded for not replacing my Samsung for an Xperia phone sooner but I have to mention the things others (in this case Samsung) are doing better then you, and you need to provide some sort of competition in these areas by implementing similar features yourself. Not everyone is forcing themselves to get used to new things, most of my friends would just go back to Samsung instead of spending the time to get their heads around in your UI, and that’s where you lose/struggle to gain customers. I know it’s been a very long entry to the forum but I wish there were another way I could express my feelings towards Sony’s Android adventure. Thanks for reading and I am up for discussion under this post if anyone’s interested and I just hope that Sony will read and think on these ideas and complaints.
