The Sony Xperia XZ3 Phone Supports USB Power Delivery Charging But Fails Many Compliance Tests

The Xperia series is Sony's bestselling phones which includes the Xperia XZ3 released in late 2018. The Xperia XZ3 was a quick jump from the Sony Xperia XZ2 in less than a year while keeping most of the Xperia XZ2's features. The Xperia XZ3 continues to support USB Power Delivery 2.0 fast charging over Type-C since it was first introduced in the Xperia XZ1 as well as Qi Low Power wireless charging from the Xperia XZ2. Interestingly despite being the newer version, the Xperia XZ3 still has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset and Adreno 630 GPU as the XZ2 although the XZ3 runs on a faster Android 9.0 OS.  

We can see more of the Xperia XZ3 as we unpacked the phone below.

Like other Xperia phones, instead of a USB Power Delivery based charger, the Xperia XZ3 was shipped with the Sony Quick Charger which uses MediaTek's PumpExpress+ 2.0 technology for battery charging although the previous Sony Quick Charger that came with the Xperia XZ1 also supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 charging.

The Xperia XZ3 also comes with a USB Type-A to Type-C cable, Type-C to 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter, earbuds and documentation. Sony phones that came later than the Xperia XZ2 have switched to USB Type-C audio since the removal of the 3.5mm audio headphone port on the XZ2.  

The Sony Quick Charger that was supplied with the Xperia XZ3 only supports 7.5W charging which is surprising given the Sony Quick Charger UCH12W  that shipped with the Xperia XZ1 offers up to 16W charging. The 7.5W Sony Quick Charger uses 5 volts @ 1.5 amps to output 7.5 watts charging through its USB Type-A connector to the Xperia XZ3. 

The back of the Xperia XZ3 has almost the same design as the Xperia XZ2, offering a similar 19MP rear camera with 4K HDR video recording and a fingerprint scanner.

While the Xperia XZ3 is slightly bigger than the Xperia XZ2, the newer phone has a OLED display with higher 1440 x 2880 pixels resolution than the 1080 x 2160 pixels LCD screen on the XZ2. The Xperia XZ3 has also upgraded from a 5MP to 13MP front camera.  

The USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gb/s) USB Type-C port is located at the bottom of the Xperia XZ3 but does not support DisplayPort video.

Using the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester, we can determine the power capabilities of the Xperia XZ3 through the following test results.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract emulating the Source to determine the Power Delivery Sink capabilities of the Xperia XZ3. The USB Power Test App then reports out the voltage and current supported by the phone for each of the Source PDO's advertised to the phone. Sony phones are unique in that they request 7V PDO when going from 5V PDO to 9V PDO.

Sink Cap.	Voltage (V)	Current (A)
5V	5.02	1.88
6V	6.14	1.61
7V	7.13	1.61
8V	8.15	1.42
9V	9.1	1.25
10V	5.1	1.91
11V	5.1	1.91
12V	5.06	1.91
13V	5.13	1.91
14V	5.1	1.91
15V	5.09	1.91
16V	5.13	1.91
17V	5.08	1.9
18V	5.1	1.91
19V	5.09	1.91
20V	5.12	1.91

The USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs also produces a voltage, current trace plot which graphically shows the voltage and current requested by the phone for each advertised Source PDO throughout the power negotiation.

Using the USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester from Granite River Labs to run just a subset of the full USB Power Delivery compliance test suite, we can see that the Xperia XZ3 supports charging using fixed PDO's of 4.5 watts (5 volts @ .9 amps), 10 watts (5 volts @ 2 amps) and 15.3 watts (9 volts @ 1.7 amps). However many compliance failures were also observed so just be more careful when using this phone.

Power Capabilities

Parameter	GetCapabilities
PD_POWER_AS_SOURCE	4500
NUM_SRC_PDOS	1
Supply Type #1	Fixed
Peak Current #1	0x0(A)
Voltage #1	0x64(5V)
Max Current #1	0x5A(.9A)
PD_POWER_AS_SINK	15000
NUM_SNK_PDOS	2
Supply Type #1	Fixed
Voltage #1	0x64(5V)
OP Current #1	0xC8(2A)
Supply Type #2	Fixed
Voltage #2	0xB4(9V)
OP Current #2	0xAA(1.7A)

USB-IF High Level Mapping Summary

Sl No	Test Category	Test Group Description	Test Result
1	PHY_PRIMARY_TX	BMC Physical Layer Transmitter	PASS
2	PHY_PRIMARY_RX	BMC Physical Layer Receiver	FAIL
3	PHY_PRIMARY_MISC	BMC Physical Layer Miscellaneous	PASS
4	PROT_PRIMARY	Protocol Specific Primary	FAIL
5	POWER_PRIMARY	Power Source/Sink Primary	FAIL

Result Summary

Sl No	Test ID	Test Name	Test Result
1	TDA.2.1.1.1	TDA.2.1.1.1 BMC PHY TX EYE	PASS
2	TDA.2.1.1.2	TDA.2.1.1.2 BMC PHY TX BIT	PASS
3	TDA.2.1.2.2	TDA.2.1.2.2 BMC PHY RX INT REJ	FAIL
4	TDA.2.1.2.1	TDA.2.1.2.1 BMC PHY RX BUSIDL	PASS
5	TDA.2.1.3.1	TDA.2.1.3.1 BMC PHY TERM	PASS
7	TDA.2.2.1	TDA.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ GETCAPS	FAIL
8	TDA.2.2.2.1	TDA.2.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ CHKCAP P PC	FAIL
9	TDA.2.2.2.2	TDA.2.2.2.2 BMC PROT SEQ CHKCAP NOMARK P PC	FAIL
10	TDA.2.2.2.3	TDA.2.2.2.3 BMC PROT SEQ CHKCAP CP ACC	FAIL
11	TDA.2.2.2.4	TDA.2.2.2.4 BMC PROT SEQ CHKCAP NOMRK CP ACC	PASS
16	TDA.2.2.7	TDA.2.2.7 BMC PROT BIST NOT 5V SRC	PASS
18	TDA.2.2.9	TDA.2.2.9 BMC PROT GSC REC	FAIL
19	TDA.2.2.10	TDA.2.2.10 BMC PROT IGN PPS	PASS
20	TDA.2.3.1.1	TDA.2.3.1.1 POW SRC LOAD P PC	FAIL
21	TDA.2.3.1.2	TDA.2.3.1.2 POW SRC LOAD CP ACC	PASS
22	TDA.2.3.2.1	TDA.2.3.2.1 POW SRC TRANS P PC	FAIL
24	TDA.2.3.3.1	TDA.2.3.3.1 POW SNK TRANS C CP	FAIL
25	TDA.2.3.3.2	TDA.2.3.3.2 POW SNK TRANS PC	PASS

BMC Eye Diagram