Grab a SLIM MODEL for Xmas cheer: Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact

Cool, slim - and fun to play with

The Z3 Tablet’s impressively thin bezels frame a 1200 x 1920 “Triluminous” IPS display with a pixels-per-inch density of 283ppi. That’s as near a dammit the same as the Nexus 9’s 287dpi. As tablet displays go it’s pretty darned good: bright and very colourful with absolutely no washout at extreme viewing angles or light bleed around the edges.

Easily held: Strong display and not too large in the hand

The display is covered with what Sony calls “scratch resistant, durable tempered glass”. So, not Gorilla Glass but something pretty similar.

Though it lacks the latest Qualcomm 805 innards the Compact still acquits itself well in the performance stakes. That’s thanks to a MSM8974AB Snapdragon 801 chipset which houses a quad-core 2.5GHz Krait 400 chip, Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of RAM. Couple that with 16GB of storage and a microSD card slot good for cards up to 128GB and you have a tablet with all the performance and storage you’ll ever need.

Run the AnTuTu benchmarking app and you’ll get a score of just over 42,000. That’s about 6,000 points below of the best I’ve personally tested (the Samsung Galaxy Note 4) and another 10,000 shy of the results thrown up by the Nvidia Tegra K1-powered Nexus 9 when El Reg tested it last month. Fifteen thousand points may sound like a lot but it’s much the same as a difference between a road car that can only do 150mph and one that can do 190. Yes the latter is much faster on a track, but so what?

The Z3 Tablet’s battery is a rather low capacity affair by modern standards with a rating of just 4,700mAh. Compare that to the Nexus 9’s 6,700mAh or the iPad Mini 3’s 6,470mAh. Despite those numbers the Sony managed to play a 1080p MP4 video file for 12 hours ten minutes before it went dark. That’s not outstanding, but it’s not too shabby either for a device that weighs so little.

Like other recent Xperias the Z3 Tablet supports Sony’s PS4 Remote Play system. This lets you use the tablet as a display on which you can run your PS4 games. There’s even a special adaptor which lets you mount your tablet on your game controller for that full PlayStation experience. I’ve yet to try Remote Play but the Z3 Compact Tablet seems the ideal tool for the job thanks to a bigger screen than any Xperia phone but a much lighter weight than the also-supported 10.1-inch Z2 Tablet.

Screenshots L-R: Sony's Small Apps in the Google Launcher; Xperia launcher; Movies app

In every other way the Z3 Compact is as up to date as you could wish for thanks to an NFC chip, apt-X enabled Bluetooth 4.0, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, ANT+ wireless tech and built-in noise cancellation though you have to buy a pair of matching Sony MDR-NC31EM earphones to take advantage of that last, there are none in the box, only a 1.5amp charger and USB cable.

The micro USB port supports OTG hosting and MHL 3.0 (so 4K HD video and 7.1 surround-sound audio shouldn’t trip it up) media streaming. There’s no infrared port though so forget using it as a remote for your telly. The cameras - 8.1MP with autofocus at the back and 2.2MP at the front - are no more than average. This being a tablet, you probably guessed that already. The centrally-positioned lens is all too easy to cover with your finger while taking snaps, too.

Side view: Note the Pogo Pins for the optional dock

Of course, if you buy a Nexus 9 you get Android Lollipop out of the box while the Z3 Compact has to make do with 4.4.4 skinned with Sony’s Xperia launcher and the promise of 5.0 to come early in the New Year. Keep in mind that Sony’s Android overlay also gives you the pretty decent Movies, Walkman and Album apps which I think are all well worth having.

If you don’t like the Xperia launcher just download the Google Now Launcher. It gives you a stock experience but doesn’t get in the way of any of the built-in features like Sony’s Small Apps.

The Reg Verdict

The Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact isn’t as powerful as the Nexus 9 and has a smaller, lower resolution screen, so it’s game over, right? Not even close. The Compact is a lot lighter and smaller, has a storage expansion slot, is water- and dust-proof and thanks to having a slightly smaller screen has near enough the same pixels-per-inch matrix density.

Battery life is similar, too, despite the Nexus 9’s more capacious power pack. For more or less the same money it’s a close call but the elfin proportions, microSD card slot and waterproofing make the Sony the winner by a nose. ®