Xperia z1 compact camera

Question

i have heard that the camera on the z1 compact is a bit slow, is this true, and is the phone worth getting if the camera is my main reason for getting the phone. thanks

Answer 1

I bought the Sony Xperia Z1 compact for the camera as much as the phone and regret it. It could well be down to user error on my part but I can't find many of the options supposedly available in the marketing information. The  instructions in the user guide are incomplete if you are trying to resolve something - the manual mode is supposed to have an autofocus option whereby you touch the screen until the yellow box goes blue but on my phone you touch the screen and absolutely nothing happens whatsoever. Perhaps there are some other settings elsewhere that are required but personally I just don't know. I expected the camera to work like any normal digital SLr or camera phone that I have had in the past but it seems that this is not the case.
The camera is also locking up after one or two shots. If you contact Sony Support by email you wait two days and then get a reply suggesting you need to reset the phone and repair the software. They say that any user information may be lost and any such data should be backed up but there are no instructions on how to do this and what exectly will be lost is not specified. Again down to lack of understanding on my part but if you are in a similar position, don't bother with the phone. If you are an expert then you may fare better than me but that's for you to decide.
As part of the repair process, the instructions I received and that you have to perform yourself, add that any apps previously downloaded should not be re-downloaded for 48 hours and only one app should then be re-downloaded in each subsequent 24 hour period and tested against the camera just in case there is a conflict between the app and the camera. Since I have only downloaded 5 or 6 apps since getting the phone a couple of months ago this will not be too much of an issue BUT if you had downloaded 14 apps you would have to wait over two weeks to get the phone back to how it was.
I expected the phone to be sorted out for me by Sony. When you pay the best part of £400 for a phone with a camera that doesn't appear to work, I didn't expect to have to fix the problems with it out myself. Good luck is deciding what to - it seems to be a complete minefield out there.