The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has always witnessed the launch of several new phones, which are mostly the flagship models for the company, in anticipation of availability in the months of April.
This has been the case once again because Sony came out with its Xperia Z1 Compact, which is not the flagship model but a step lower, while the Samsung came out with its successor to the Samsung Galaxy S4 – Galaxy S5.
The enormous success of the Samsung Galaxy S3 has not been maintained by the Galaxy S4 and its flagging sales has to be revived by the Galaxy S5. For this purpose, the company has packed as many features as possible into this device.
Design
Sony has always been one of the best brands to come out with well-designed phones. It has sort of compromised the design due to the water and dust resistant feature, which is also available in the Galaxy S5, in the Xperia Z1 Compact. Being a company as experienced as Sony, they have still managed to make the Xperia Z1 Compact be one of the best looking phones in the market today. The water resistant feature means that all the openings are covered.
It also results in the phone being slightly heavier and bulkier. Hence, after several versions of continuously reducing its weight, the flagship Galaxy model will now feature an increase of weight to 145 g. The thickness, however, is still at a very remarkable 8.1 mm. The Xperia Z1 Compact is comparatively less heavy, but it is bulkier at 9.5 mm in thickness.
Primary Features
The major differences between the two phones come in the screen and the technology used. Due to the nature of being a flagship model, Samsung has used the best possible screen and technology. It is a 5.1 inch unit that uses the Super AMOLED technology. It comes with full HD resolution support, which maxes the PPI to 432. The Xperia Z1 Compact, in comparison, comes with only a 4.3 inch display but then it was decided to be compact as its name shows.
Due to the smaller screen, Sony has been able to maintain a decent pixel density of 342 PPI even by using a 720p resolution.
Battery
The smaller screen enables the Xperia Z1 Compact to provide impressive battery life even with just a 2300 mAh unit at its heart. It is estimated that it will be able to run up to 10 hours in the 2G mode with music playback support up to 91 hours. Being a much larger device, the Galaxy S5 has to employ a 2800 mAh unit in order to provide a similar level of battery life.
Camera
The Samsung uses a 16 megapixel unit – a massive improvement from the Galaxy S4, but it is dwarfed by the 20 megapixel unit on the Xperia Z1 Compact.
The Xperia Z1 Compact, which has been available since January 2014, should retail at around $ 500 without contracts, while the unlocked 16 GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S5 will come at around $ 700.
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