Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet review

Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Android 4.4

The Z2 Tablet runs a customised version of Android, and we think it’s a winner. A stock version of Android 4.4 can look dark and staid, but Sony’s customisations are generally subtle and classy – it’s a great-looking operating system. It’s simple to customise your homescreens; long-pressing brings up a carousel view showing all your homescreens, with a sidebar showing apps and widgets for you to drag where you want. The main app tray makes it easy to navigate your app collection, too. Swiping in from the left edge brings up a menu which lets you sort your apps alphabetically, by the most used apps and according to an order of your own devising.

We were sent the 32GB model, which has around 25GB of storage left for your apps and files. The 16GB model is £50 cheaper, but looking at how much space the operating system takes up on the 32GB model, we’d take a guess at no more than 10GB being left on the 16GB Z2 Tablet out of the box. There’s a microSD card slot to help you add more space cheaply, however.

Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Display

Apple and Samsung may have pushed their tablet resolutions to huge heights, with the 2,048×1,536 resolution of the iPad Air and the massive 2,560×1,600 of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 and Galaxy Note 10.1, but Sony has stuck with a relatively standard 1,920×1,200 for the Z2 Tablet. This means it has a pixel density of 224ppi compared to the iPad’s 264ppi and Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1’s huge 311ppi, but we’re not convinced it matters. Text on the Z2 Tablet’s screen is still incredibly sharp and clear and web pages couldn’t be easier to read.

The Z2 Tablet is also helped by the sheer quality of its IPS panel. Our calibration tests showed the Z2 Tablet’s screen to be objectively the best of any tablet we’ve reviewed. We saw the best results when we turned off Sony’s X-Reality feature, which is meant to improve photo and video image quality. The tablet could display 98.9% of the sRGB colour gamut, which is better than the 96.8% we measured from the iPad Air’s screen and the 93.3% from the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro. Sony’s tablet also showed a superior contrast ratio, with a huge 1069:1, compared to 805:1 and 812:1 for Apple and Samsung’s tablets.

These figures were backed up by our own eyes; this tablet has some of the most vibrant colours and purest whites we have seen. It’s very slightly better than the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro’s display, which has a very mild blue colour cast, but there’s little to choose between this and the iPad Air’s screen. Once we turned X-Reality back on, the contrast ratio dropped to 942:1 and we lost some shadow detail in our test photos, but standard-definition videos looked sharper.

Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Conclusion

The Z2 Tablet may not be hugely different from its predecessor, but it’s an improvement in all the ways that really count. It’s slimmer, lighter and faster with an absolutely beautiful screen, and even has impressive battery life, lasting 15 hours in our video playback test. It’s the best Android tablet by far, and there’s little to choose between this and the iPad in terms of speed, ease of use and screen quality. If you want a 10in Android tablet, buy this one.