Sony Xperia Tablet Z review

SNAP, CRACKLE AND POP

Photographers will certainly appreciate the screen for showing off their work, but they can also use the Xperia Tablet Z for taking images. The rear camera uses Sony’s Exmor R imaging sensor, it’s capable of capturing 8.1-megapixel stills, though in the default Superior Auto settings this is limited to 7.2-megapixels, and recording video at 1080p. Burst photos and Sony’s sweep panorama modes are included, and multiple photo effects can be toggled through the Camera app, including fisheye, tilt-shift and partial vignette.

We weren’t that taken with the camera in our initial tests, but we’ll run it through more tests in the days to come

Unfortunately, it takes noisy images at maximum resolution, even in daylight. Shooting stills in our office, it frequently over-exposed the windows and overhead lights, while at the same time lacking detail in the darker parts of each scene. With the right lighting and a steady hand, it’s possible to capture clear snapshots, but it certainly won’t replace your compact camera, or even a high quality smartphone. Outdoors, it fared slightly better, capturing plenty of detail on an overcast London morning – with the added advantage that we didn’t have to worry about the rain damaging the tablet. There’s no flash, so low-light images suffer from a lack of detail and increased noise. Finally, the front webcam uses a smaller 2.2-megapixel sensor, which is fine for video chat or quick self-taken snaps.

INSIDE SOURCE

Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro processor running at 1.5GHz and paired with 2GB of RAM, the Xperia Tablet Z is a seriously fast tablet. Android absolutely flies, with no signs of stuttering and very little time spent waiting for applications to load. The quad-core CPU did lose out a little to the higher-clocked dual-core chip found in the Nexus 10 in the Geekbench and SunSpider benchmarks, but during regular use you aren’t going to notice the difference.

Games and 3D applications are where the Tablet Z takes the lead – it scored an incredible 9,802 in 3DMark Ice Storm, making it the fastest Android tablet we’ve tested and almost as fast as the current crop of quad-core smartphones from the likes of HTC and Samsung. We had no trouble playing demanding games like Real Racing 3, which look fantastic at Full HD resolutions. As it’s a Sony device you can pair a PlayStation 3 controller with the tablet, plug the tablet into your TV via HDMI and turn it into an ad-hoc games console.

All that 3D power doesn’t come at the expense of battery life. In our video playback test, the Tablet Z managed a superb ten hours 17 minutes. That means it will outlast Apple’s latest iPad, arguably the benchmark for tablet battery life, by almost 20 minutes.

DROID USER

The Xperia Tablet Z runs Android 4.1.2, rather than the newest Jelly Bean 4.2 version, although Sony has promised that an update will be made available in the coming months. This means that, for the time being, there’s no way to use multiple user accounts on the tablet, as Sony hasn’t included the Guest Account feature we saw in the Tablet S. As it is, Sony’s custom Android skin gives it a sleek appearance, without becoming obtrusive like some of its competitors. The only additions, other than some re-skinned icons, are the shortcut bar on at the top of the home screen and the mini apps toolbar at the bottom – this lets you open a small web browser window, notepad or calculator over the top of an open app.

Sony’s take on Android is pretty close to Google’s, with a couple of useful tweaks

There are plenty of bundled apps as well, including Sony’s Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited apps for streaming music and renting films, the very slick Walkman for playing music saved to the 16GB of internal memory and Album photo gallery, which can import images from Facebook and Picasa, or from a NAS or networked PC.

There’s also the Remote Control app for turning the tablet into a universal remote using its IR blaster, we tried this on a couple of TVs from other manufacturers and though it’s not the easiest to set up, we got it working smoothly in quick order.

The Tablet Z is built to work smoothly with Sony’s Bravia TVs, with built-in NFC, screen mirroring and the ability to “throw” content using DLNA, although you can send videos to any compatible TV, rather than just Sony ones. It also includes the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS connectivity, along with an optional 4G module – if you buy the more expensive model, coming soon for around £490.

Read Expert Reviews in the bath on the waterproof Tablet Z

CONCLUSION

There’s little doubt that the Sony Xperia Tablet Z is one of the best 10in tablets we’ve ever reviewed. Its main competitor is Google’s Nexus 10, which is £80 cheaper and has a higher resolution screen; although the Tablet Z has plenty of features that make choosing between the two a tough decision.

The thinner, lighter, waterproof chassis, built-in IR blaster, expandable storage and Sony-specific tweaks, like the ability to pair a PS3 DualShock controller for gaming, all give it a real edge. At £399 for the 16GB model, many people will prefer to save money and opt for the Nexus, but they’d be missing out on a fantastic tablet. Taking money out of the equation, we would pick the Tablet Z every time.