ad 2 - Sony's Compacts are pretty good. tho, no Gorilla glass (Sony has it's own, scratch-friendly thing), and they issue new models at such a stupidly quick pace, that the Z1 Compact which i have is already not getting updates any more (no Marshmallow) even though it's less than 2 years old, and almost identical to the Z3 which is getting the update. but i guess that happens with all producers...