Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/01/review_sony_xperia_tablet_z_android/
Sony Xperia Tablet Z: Our new top Android ten-incher
'The most convincing 10-inch slate on the market'
Posted in Tablets, 1st July 2013 09:06 GMT
Review Not so long ago, Sony declared its aim to be the second most popular tablet vendor after Apple. More recently, that morphed into an ambition to sell the most mobile devices after Apple and Samsung. If both those targets are not to be consigned to the rubbish bin of ill-advised statements, Sony’s phones and tablets need to start getting better fast.
Luckily for Sony they are. I don't rate the the Xperia Z phone quite as highly as many of my colleagues do, but it’s certainly not a bad old Hector and is selling strongly. The new Xperia SP is a device that certainly lit my fire. Now Sony has released a fondleslab counterpart to its latest Xperia phones, the Xperia Tablet Z.
Xperia Tablet Z: you can hold it like this all day long
With the Tablet Z Sony thankfully hasn’t tried to reinvent the wheel so there are no strange wedge or clamshell form factors at play as was the case with past Sony slates. What the Tablet Z does offer is a very slim profile, a high definition screen and an impressive lack of weight.
Thanks to the shared design language - called “OmniBalance” by Sony - it looks very much like an Xperia Z that’s been rolled flat. It even carries over the Z’s IP57 resistance to water and dust and its large aluminium power button. Available in 16 and 32GB flavours, the Tablet Z also packs a Micro SD slot which gives it an important edge over the Apple- and Nexus-badged competition, which don’t have one.
Despite being only 7.2mm thick - that’s the official figure; according to my steel rule it’s closer to 6.5mm - and weighing 495g, the Tablet Z is very nearly as robust and solid as the iPad 4. Certainly the screen doesn’t take a mescaline trip when you try to twist it. There are some signs that tolerances are tight, though. Apply some serious torque to the body and sometimes an app or menu will launch, the screen clearly thinking it has been fiddled with.
The back is pleasent to touch but shows up fingerprints badly
I’m not sure the IP57 certificate is strictly necessary. I don’t know about you, but I’d be inclined to take care of a tablet I’d just paid four hundred quid for. So using it in the bath, in the pouring rain or on a building site probably wouldn’t figure in my usage regime. But at least you can take it to the beach without worrying about beer or sand worming its way into its sensitive innards.
The downside of the waterproofing is that all the ports, including the 3.5mm audio jack, have fiddly plug-in covers. Constantly opening and closing them can become a chore so you may want to consider buying the optional charging cradle which connects to the Tablet Z through a couple of contact pins.
Another small annoyance is that the Micro SD and USB ports, and thus their covers, are at the bottom - hardly an ideal place for the charge socket full stop - out of sight and out of mind. I constantly found myself forgetting to close the USB port cover after charging.
Top: Detail of speaker grilles, dock connector, and micro USB slot and cover
Bottom: The power and volume controls, and the (covered) 3.5mm audio jack
When I first saw pictures of the Tablet Z, I was slightly worried that it would have the same rather cold and clammy glass back as the Xperia Z but I needn't have fretted. The matte plastic rear is a much better idea and feels pleasant to the touch though it does show up fingerprints badly. Sony will sell you a handy multi-form carry case to keep your Z looking mint.
Impressive performer
The Tablet Z’s 1920 x 1200 screen has a pixel density of 224dpi which falls short of both the Nexus 10 (299dpi) and the iPad 4 (264dpi). To be honest, those differences are academic. I’ve peered closely at the Z and iPad 4 side by side and even with my nose pressed against the glass there really is little discernable difference. I don’t recall the Nexus 10 being all that much sharper.
A decent if not outstanding screen
The shatterproof glass display - like the Asus FonePad’s screen, it’s not Gorilla Glass but something similar - is a conventional TFT LCD affair rather than IPS or PLS as used in the iPad 4 and Nexus 10, respectively. That means viewing angles and contrast though good are not up to quite the same levels but when playing video the difference is overcome by Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine 2 image processing. Playing a 1080p video on the Z is a very rewarding experience though there could be a little more brightness on offer for outdoor use.
When it comes to actually holding the thing, Sony roundly clobbers the competition. The Tablet Z is 108g lighter than the Nexus 10 and 157g lighter than an iPad 4. That’s essentially a whole smartphone less and makes the Z a very easy device to hold for prolonged periods, even single-handedly. When I first pulled the Tablet Z out of the box I was shocked how light it felt.
Hauling the coal is a Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8064 quad-core 1.5GHz Krait CPU with 2GB of Ram and an Adreno 320 GPU. That’s a solid spec for a high-end Android device and gives the Tablet Z an impressive lick of seed. The GPU has absolutely no problem shoving all those pixels about when running games like Real Racing 3 and Shadowgun: DeadZone even if it lacks the ultimate on-paper grunt of the Nexus 10’s Mali-604 graphics core.
AnTuTu Benchmark Results
Longer bars are better
Running the usual benchmarks, I found AnTuTu returned an average score of around 20,500 while the SunSpider browser performance test ran in an average of 1500ms on Chrome. Only the likes of the HTC One and Galaxy S4 can offer any serious improvement on those numbers.
Like other recent Xperia devices, the Tablet Z runs Android 4.1.2 but here the launcher is a little closer to stock than it is on the Xperia SP or the Z. Like its smartphone counterparts, the Z Tablet gets Sony’s Small Apps launcher on the taskbar but there’s also a very handy shortcuts bar at the top of the screen so you can launch often used apps no matter what screen you are on.
One of the widget-like Small Apps is a cut-down version of the excellent pre-loaded remote control app. Combined with the IR blaster this makes the Tablet Z a fine device for controlling your home entertainment system.
Small Apps and (behind) the Socialife widget
As I’ve said before, I like Sony’s media apps a lot. They make the Tablet Z a truly superb device for listening to music, watching video or looking at still images. The web-connected video and Walkman music players and the picture album are object lessons in How It Should Be Done. Other OEMs and Google, take note.
The task bar at the top left of the screen is useful
The media apps aren’t let down by the sound system either. The stereo speakers, each of which fire out of the bottom and side of each lower corner, sound good and there’s ample volume available. Things get even better when you plug in a decent pair of headphones. The sound from the Walkman app, with or without the various filters engaged, is up with the best I’ve ever heard from a mobile device. It makes the Play Music app sound a bit two-bob by comparison.
Skinny
The only fly in the ointment is the positioning of the speakers: it’s all too easy to cover the grilles when you are holding the Z in your lap, though I suspect increased familiarity will fix that problem for owners.
Perfect for the British summer...
The drive to keep the Tablet Z slim and light has led to a compromise with the battery. At 6000mAh it’s smaller than the Nexus 10’s 9000mAh battery and close to half the capacity of the iPad 4’s 11,560mAh cell. That said, I was still easily able to get an average of two full days of use from a charge.
The 1080p video loop-of-death test turned in a result of five hours and 45 minutes with the Wi-Fi radio on and the screen at 60 per cent brightness. That’s acceptable but no more. Strangely the bundled USB charger only has a 1.5A output. The 2A charger that came with my Nexus 7 juiced the Table Z up far more quickly.
With an 8.1Mp camera at the back and a 2.2Mp webcam up front, both of which have a CMOS Exmor R sensor, the Z is photographically the best-endowed tablet money can buy. The webcam is particularly good - my first video call in glorious 1080p 16:9 with the Z got a reaction of, “Blimey, Al, you look good”. If only she’d been talking about me not the image quality.
Here’s a very brief video of the Xperia Tablet Z’s webcam in action:
I’ve no quibbles with the Z’s connectivity portfolio either. The micro USB port supports On-The-Go hosting and MHL media output. On the wireless side you get 802.11n dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. The LTE version supports 4G across the 800, 850, 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz wavelengths, and 3G speeds of 42Mbps down and 5.8Mbps up.
My review device came with the 3/4G modem and both the cellular and Wi-Fi reception proved usefully robust in all my usual test blackspots. I can’t comment on 4G speeds because Vodafone, Which supplied my review unit, hasn’t rolled out its UK 4G network yet.
The cherry on the cake is that Sony has priced the Z pretty aggressively. The 16GB device will set you back £399 which is the same as a 16GB iPad 4 but of course that has no storage expansion or GPS, and inferior cameras. The £319 16GB Nexus 10 is cheaper but also lacks a memory card slot. If you want a cellular tablet the 16GB 4G Tablet Z has a sticker price of £499, again the same as the cellular but still cardless iPad. There’s no such thing as a 3G or 4G Nexus 10.
Now that’s a thin tablet
The Reg Verdict
There’s very little to criticise the Xperia Tablet Z over. It’s thin, light, powerful, well-made, waterproof and it has a memory card slot. The battery life could be better but the cameras are both excellent by tablet standards, and the media playback apps and hardware are superb.
In fact, I’d say the Tablet Z is the most convincing 10-inch tablet on the market at the moment and certainly the best that Sony has ever produced. If I was thinking about splashing out on a new smartphone and a new tablet, I’d spend the money on an Xperia SP and an Xperia Tablet Z, respectively. Never before would Sony have topped either my phone or tablet want-list, let alone both, so it’s clearly doing something right. ®
Thanks to Vodafone for lending us a test device.