[rwp-review id=”0″]
Tablets? Anyone know how and why they are called so? Well, fun fact: In the stone ages and medieval times, flat stones were used as a means to write things down and were known as stone tablets and by no means is to be confused with a medical ‘tablet’. HAHA.
Today, I have the Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet and the reason why I’m extremely hysterical about getting my hands on this is because it’s been known to be a direct competitor to Apple’s Ipad Air 2. I is a major Apple fan boy, but I’m sorry folks, this is not a comparison article and I’m going to solely focus on the Z4. Let’s see, a super hi-resolution display, water and dust resistant AND PlayStation integration all packed into a super slim and sleek chassis? I wish I had more time with this baby.
Design
People say don’t judge a book by its cover but then again they say first impressions are the best. Packaging to me is that first impression and I was quite pleased to see the box of the Z4. Minimalistic yet powerful and eye boggling. Worked my way through to the tablet itself and finally held it in my hand. I think it fit quite comfortably as it’s shaved down to a 6.1mm thick body and weighs in at about 390 grams, so you can hold it for long periods of time and not get fatigued doing so. The body is made of plastic and sealed in with tempered glass for the display with a matte textured finish at the back, which makes it look quite decent and of course serves as good grip. If there were one design feature I really thought was done well, it would be the fact that the power and volume buttons are on the same side adjacent to each other, which only makes sense for a tablet that is primarily designed for landscape mode use. It has a micro USB port on the right for charging and data transfer purposes, with a headphone jack and embedded micro SD and sim card (LTE specific version) slots covered by a lanky plastic flap on the top (I was afraid of manhandling it). It also features a front camera neighbored by a multi colored notification LED on the face of the tablet. I observed there were 2 narrow incisions on either side of the screen, which are loud speakers in disguise adding to the clean minimal look. To summarize, visually, the Z4 has a characteristic Sony design and depending on your taste you may either thoroughly enjoy the minimalistic look or find it insipid.
Display
Clearly, the Z4’s display is one of its most significant components. It has a 10.1 inch sized display with a whopping resolution of 2560X1600 pixels that makes this screen one of the best displays in the tablet market. The images are sharp, contain less noise, the color saturation is on point and well defined, credits to the Triluminos technology paired with the X-Reality image-processing engine that was introduced with the Z series. These new technological improvements also give the Z4 great viewing angles. With all of these packed into a tablet, you can be assured to get the best viewing experience with any kind of task that you might be carrying out on the Z4, be it gaming, movies or just reading material. If you’re still not convinced with the way the display looks you can further tweak settings that allow you to change white balance and color temperatures but you can take my word on the default settings being stellar.
Performance
Just to throw in a couple of names that may make the geeks go crazy. The Z4 Tablet is powered by the 2GHz, Snapdragon 810 (64Bit, Octa core) by Qualcomm backed by 3GB worth of RAM. I have honestly never come across any smart phone or tablet that firstly, boots up so quickly and races through different tasks so smoothly. The processing power is so immense that applications just open as soon as you hover your finger over the app icon, no glitchy animations, navigation and switching between applications is flawless and multitasking works perfectly as well. Again, the best way to test your processing power is to download a graphic heavy game and see how the device performs and the Z4 definitely lived up to my expectations. However, I noticed a little bit of heating. I did some research and found out that the Snapdragon is known to heat up in some cases but I did not face any problems with over heating or the tablet dying on me even though I used it extensively for hours on graphic heavy applications.
Hardware
Finally, we get to the audio performance analysis. I have to say Sony did a brilliant job with this too. I guess it goes without saying: With great video, comes great audio or that should be the case at least. The Z4 has amazing hi-res audio (DSEE HX) technology built into it that exceptionally reduces distortion and not to forget the xLoud Experience that also enhances the audio quality of the loud speakers. The sound that comes through the Z4 headphone output is automatically optimized irrespective of the kind of earphones or headphones you are using to give you the best listening experience you can get. 10 points. If you really want to get into an immersive listening experience the Z4 can deliver that to you as well with their digital noise cancelling technology which when coupled with a digital noise cancelling pair of headphones can filter out 98% of noise which is more than commendable in my opinion. Audio enthusiasts might find going into the settings menu and further tweaking settings to their likings quite fruitful. Going back to the loudspeakers, I realized that not too many tablets have a front facing speaker let alone two on either side of the screen like the Z4 does. That being said, I always prefer headphones but these speakers are not too bad and can put out some decent volume levels too.
The Z4 has generous storage memory as well with 32GB internal memory that can be buffed up to 128GB and an additional 8GB through the micro SD card slot. This tablet is pretty durable too with an IP65 and IP68 rating which means it is dust and water-resistant but that applies to fresh water only. Please do not take this beauty into the sea!
Supposedly, the Z4 can run for up to 17 hours of HD video playback which is a whole lot and for the most of it I think it has a decent battery life but somehow a 3 hour Skype session drained my charge from about 95 – 20% which I didn’t expect to happen. Then again, 20% might seem less to most users but I used it for another few hours after until it ultimately ran out of juice. I think a 6000mAh battery just isn’t going to cut it for me after all. There are 3 modes available depending on how low you are on battery level and the amount of work that needs finishing. There’s the extended standby mode, extended usage mode and the ultra stamina mode.
Before I forget, this tablet does have Bluetooth and NFC, so rest assured when it comes to pairing random things with your tablet.
There are also 2 variants for this model, one, the wifi only version and two, the LTE version. Both come without the external keyboard that can be purchased separately.
Camera
I never really thought the cameras on tablets were good enough especially when you compare it to the ones we get with our smartphones but what you do get with the Z4 is a front facing 5MP and a rear 8MP Sony camera. The rear camera is not very bad and I got some decent pictures with it considering it’s a tablet. The only limitation would be the lack of a flashlight, which prohibits you from taking decent pictures in the absence of good lighting. I came across a bunch of modes the camera can be put into. Predominantly the usual camera modes you find on smart devices, but honestly some of them are really not required but it’s fun at the same time when messing around with AR modes.
Software
This tab runs on android version 5.0.2 aka Lollipop with the Xperia UI there to make it a very streamlined and efficient android. Now, coming from iOS side of things, I’ve always looked down on android interfaces and their unnecessary customization options that ultimately just puts a load on your processing unit but I was proved wrong by the Z4. There are many standard Sony features and apps on this tablet but the one that really got my attention is the PlayStation and Remote Play app. Peeps, you could actually use it as a second screen or use it as a remote in case your TV isn’t free or broken. It just blows my mind that I could sit on my toilet and play a PlayStation game through my tablet using a PS4 controller…WHAAAATT? This feature alone gives it an amazing competitive edge over its competitors especially when it comes to the gaming department but on the downside this experience is solely dependent on how good your Internet speed is. Health apps are a trend too and we have the Lifelog that comes with Z4 that helps you keep track of your lifestyle.
The Verdict
In conclusion, I think it’s a brilliant all round tablet capable of multi tasking well. What could make it better was if they had a stylus included allowing artists to make full use of the phenomenal display and processing power to pen down masterpieces on the Z4. It’s definitely priced accurately at about AED 2700. If you are the kind of person that enjoys tablets this would definitely you need to consider buying.
