The Xperia X Compact is powered by the same Snapdragon 650, found in the Xperia X. While that seems logical, the Compact moniker used to mean the current Qualcomm top-end model, but you won't find the Snapdragon 820 here.
This midrange SoC is no slouch, though. Its CPU is built up of 2 powerful Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.8GHz, and another 4 Cortex-A53 cores limited to 1.4GHz. The GPU is Adreno 510. Unlike last year's Z5 Compact, the X Compact comes with 3GB of RAM, as much as the XZ flagship and the X Performance.
We've had the Snapdragon 650 visit at the office on a number of occasions, including the Xperia X itself, so we have a general idea what to expect in terms of benchmark performance. All previous devices, however, had 1080p displays, so it would be interesting to see just how much better the chipset will fare with the X Compact's 720p resolution.
That said, we'll be starting with CPU performance, as usual, and we'll be looking at some GeekBench 3.0 scores. Apparently, the Snapdragon 650 has been tuned differently on the X Compact, as in the single-core test it delivers a noticeable bump in performance compared to the plain X. A score above 1500 is more like the norm here though, looking at the two Xiaomis.
In the multi-core test, the X Compact manages to edge ahead of the Z5 Compact, which has a Snapdragon 810 - that's the difference a year makes in the development of midrange chipsets.
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Higher is better
Antutu gauges overall performance, and according to the latest pre-6 version of this benchmark, the X Compact pulls ahead of the Z5 Compact as well. The X Performance is still in the lead, but the iPhone 6s is behind, though we're not sure just how well this lends to cross-platform comparisons.
In Antutu 6, the gap between the Snapdragon 820 and 650 grows wider, perhaps because it puts more emphasis on graphics performance. The differences between the four S650 devices we've tested are marginal. We have no Antutu 6 results of the Z5 Compact, unfortunately.
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Higher is better
Another indication of all-round performance comes from Basemark OS II 2.0. The X Compact is again a smidgeon ahead of the X, and substantially behind the X Performance. What's more important is that the X Compact significantly outperforms the Xperia Z5 Compact from last year.
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Raw graphics performance on the Xperia X Compact is understandably not on par with the X Performance - in Basemark X the Snapdragon 820-powered device scores nearly twice as high as the X Compact. The Z5 Compact is also in a different league, compared to this year's Compact.
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Moving on to GFXBench, in the offscreen 3.0 Manhattan test, the X Performance does about 3 times as many fps as the X Compact. In the onscreen version, rendered at the devices respective resolutions, the X Compact (Snapdragon 650, 720p display) doubles its score, but is still roughly 30 percent behind the X Performance (S820, 1080p) and the Z5 Compact (S810, 720p). Here, the Xperia X stands no chance with a combination of the weaker S650 and FullHD resolution.
In the more intense 3.1 Manhattan, the ratio between the various Xperias is kept, with the notable exception of the Z5's excellent onscreen result.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Higher is better
Higher is better
A few conclusions are in order, but the short version is that the Xperia X Compact is doing fine with the Snapdragon 650. The X Performance, well, outperforms the X Compact across the board, despite the adverse effects of the higher-res display. The X Compact is on par, or better than the Z5 Compact in all tests, but intense 3D gaming, where this year's model still performs adequately.
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