Sony Mobile on Thursday held its pre-IFA 2017 press conference and announced a handful of new Android smartphones, including the Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact, its more portable revisions of the Xperia XZ Premium which the Tokyo, Japan-based consumer electronics manufacturer unveiled earlier this year at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. The two devices primarily differ in terms of screen size and otherwise have mostly identical specs, which also applies to their batteries.
The Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact are powered by 2,700mAh batteries which are significantly smaller than the 3,230mAh unit found in the 5.46-inch Xperia XZ Premium, though their screens were also reduced in a relatively proportional manner, with the Xperia XZ1 having a 5.2-inch panel and the Xperia XZ1 Compact featuring a 4.6-inch one. Due to that state of affairs and the fact that the three handsets are all powered by the Qualcomm-made Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip (SoC) that boasts a high standard of energy efficiency, the smallest device is likely to have an even better battery life than the Xperia XZ Premium, while the Xperia XZ1 should last about as much as Sony’s original 2017 flagship does on a single charge. Neither of the newly announced handsets has a removable battery, meaning that replacements won’t be as easy as simply ordering a spare online and popping it in, and it’s currently unclear how much will replacement batteries cost. The Japanese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) likely opted for this move due to the IP68-certified dust and water resistance boasted by both devices which would have been significantly harder to achieve if the two were to ship with removable batteries.
Once the Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact are depleted, recharging them should only take around an hour thanks to their support for Quick Charge 3.0, Qualcomm’s proprietary fast charging solution which will likely refill the 2,700mAh units in no time. One final feature that should ensure the two devices have solid battery life is their operating system of choice, with both the Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact running Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box and promising to take full advantage of Google’s latest improvements on the app management front which aim to maximize energy efficiency.
