A few weeks ago I picked up a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact on pay as you go at my local Vodafone store in Plymouth. It was on a special offer and was unlocked by the store before I left.

I have since fitted it with a front screen protector, bought a few magnetic to usb cables to charge it, and now have a superb terrapin hard soft to touch case cover for it. I also bought the special noise cancelling headphones to try out with Sony’s music app. My 128gb micro sd card is installed and this has 60gb of music on it along with a wide selection of my photos. 

Originally, my plan with the Z3 Compact was to review it and then sell it on. However, I find it one handed use and extremely pocketable size a joy. Add to the fact it is waterproof and dust proof, this is the phone I am now using when I go walking on Dartmoor. I use Viewranger GPS maps and the Z3 Compact is an ideal companion as the wet and windy and foggy conditions of Dartmoor are ideal for this phone. It also has 2 days battery use without even using any of the special power saving modes which extend it further. 

The Z3 Compact on paper has a 20.7mp rear camera. It’s pretty terrible in auto mode, so I have to use manual settings all the time. Fortunately, I can cope with this fairly easily, although the photos are still below par versus other smartphones. Regardless of the camera, this pocket rocket of a phone is wonderful. I will be writing my full review at some point too.

Anyway, the phone came with android lollipop out of the box. This morning it received an OTA update that took this phone to android 5.0.2. 

After the update, the next message I received was Google Play services had stopped. This is the lollipop memory bug, still present and dangerous!