TECH – It’s light in the hand but still heavy on the wallet, it has excellent 1080p visual quality and other features and I couldn’t stop playing Grand Theft Auto 3 on it! We are on a Sony themed website, so what else could it be, than the Xperia Z3 tablet, which I had the chance to finally review. What about other features? Is this the same excellent “Xperience”, than the first two tablets? Read on dear reader!

Sony’s consumer electronics division has to think twice now, when to make another piece of electronic hardware. While the PlayStation 4 is a tremendous success other Sony divisions were less successful with their own products. Even if usually every Sony hardware is state of the art, due their high price range and changing consumer needs they sold less than expected and the company recently pledged to make fewer TVs and smartphones in a bid to get its books back in the black.

The smartphone and tablet market isn’t so forgiving lately either, but Sony still keeps to its own brand of Xperia phones and tablets. Fortunately so, because their latest premium tablet is just as an elegant and powerful device as its predecessors…

Tablet in black

An elegant, distinctly no-nonsense approach to design: that’s the general approach of Sony to all of their hardware lately. This Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact has a deliberate, square profile, softened only by slight rounding of its corners and sides.

This style is now in stark contrast with other designer’s use of vibrant colors, clashing textures and a bit of imagination to attract buyers – especially women. If there’s one manufacturer, which is truly concentrates on men, than it’s Sony with its serious looking and plain design.

I actually happen to like it a lot, but I can understand if you call it uninspiring or flat-out boring. For me Xperia devices are all stylishly simple and the Z3 tablet is no exception to that rule.

The only design oversight is perhaps proprietary magnetic dock connector, which is pretty cumbersome to close all the time. I understand, that it’s for the waterproof feature (which I didn’t used at all since almost three years that I have now my very own Xperia Z1) but it’s still somewhat annoying.

Despite this remaining small design fault the Xperia Z3 is still a classy looking, slick, elegant device.

Show me your true colors!

The Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is decked out with an 8-inch, 1,920 x 1,200 IPS LCD display (283 ppi). In simpler terms, that means it has a full HD (1080p) screen with a few pixels left over for accommodating the standard Android navigation keys.

As is Sony’s way, the tablet is graced with several of the company’s display technologies, including Triluminos and X-Reality for richer colors and sharper images. To put it simply: the screen is quite simply gorgeous.

Colors are vivid; whites are accurate; and blacks are basically as good as they can be for an LCD display. Viewing angles are excellent, and the panel can also claim fantastic sunlight readability. On a nice day, you’ll still get a modicum of glare coming off the glass, but the screen burns bright enough to be easily visible even in strong, direct sunlight.

I tested the tablet on both Android games, remote play functionality and movies and the picture was nothing short of excellent.

“Set on a remote tablet, far away from civilization…”

Ok, now that I mentioned Remote play, let’s talk a bit about this feature, rarely discussed in the reviews of Xperia tablets. As you maybe know, Xperia smartphones and tablets can now use this feature with the PS4, which was only available with the PlayStation Vita, when the PS4 was first out in late 2013.

The streaming itself works roughly in the same fashion as with the Vita with the exception of the advanced PlayStation menu, which is actually part of the PlayStation 4 application, which you can download from Google Play. The whole experience is generally pretty slick – especially thanks to the excellent picture quality and size of the screen – still there are some hiccups to the whole picture.

First you need to add your PS4 controller (or a PS3 one works as well, if you have still your old PlayStation console) via a Bluetooth application. Once it’s added, it works without much problems, but then you cannot use it on the PS4, until you add it to your PS4 too.

The other problem is related to the screen artifacts which happen when you have a bad Wi-Fi connection. Yes, it’s pretty much the same as with the PS Vita, but it’s a lot more noticeable here, due to the bigger screen size and better resolution. So you need a perfect Wi-Fi connection, otherwise the experience will be rather painful.

If you want to use it outside of your home, bringing your PS4 controller can be a bit cumbersome as well. To be perfectly honest, when I want to use Remote play, I still prefer to use my PS Vita. If you have only an Xperia tablet and a PS4, Remote play can be still very enjoyable, but be sure to only use it when you have a perfect Wi-Fi connection (both at your home, and at the place you are staying).

Android gaming

While PS4 Remote play is still a very nice experience – if you have a tranquil place to play and a good Wi-Fi connection – you’ll probably play more with Android games on the go. I am not particularly fond of Android titles, the only games I usually play on smartphones and tablets are the Grand Theft Auto titles.

My favorite is Grand Theft Auto III on full resolution, and every features turned on and concerning speed and frame the tablet didn’t disappoint me at all. It is also true for every other games I tried: you can safely turn every features on the framerate will be flawless.

How does it sound?

Concerning sounds tablets are never reaching for top quality, and while it’s true for Xperia Z3 as well, you can be pleasantly surprised with the Xperia Z3 Compact Tablet. Sound is well-defined, even if it is restricted to the middle and top end, and the speakers kick out more than enough volume to annoy everyone near you.

At about 75 percent of maximum volume though, the tablet begins to vibrate and audio loses all sense of clarity as distortion takes hold. The speakers could be way better, and any semblance of bass whatsoever would be appreciated, but there are also worse ways to watch an episode of your favorite show in bed.

Of course it sounds a lot better with you headphones on: this way the audio is crisp and perfectly balanced, with a healthy bass range to get your head bobbing.

Look through the camera!

I was always surprised how tablet’s cameras are inferiors to those of smartphones. It is true for the Z3 tablet as well, which makes weaker images than my trusty old Xperia Z1. Forget the flash function, there isn’t one, and with night pictures and even with less light, the Xperia Z3 makes less impressive pictures than my Xperia Z1.

Of course within a well-lit area photos looks a lot better, but still not on pair with smartphone’s cameras. On one hand it’s somewhat understandable (the smartphone photographer is a much more demanding breed of user, whereas a tablet camera is more of a functional asset) on the other hand it would be nice if with such an expensive tablet, I wouldn’t had to use my old smartphone just to make better pictures.

Often the images from the Tablet Compact are frequently washed out, overexposed and lacking realistic color representation. Still, every now and again, you’ll be surprised by the quality of a picture, but only because the previous five have been a disappointment. The Z2’s camera was actually a bit better, so I can only conclude that the sensor hasn’t been calibrated properly with the newer tablet.

Software and battery life

If you by the Z3 Tablet Compact it is running Android 4.4.4 KitKat, but you can upgrade it to Lollipop (Android version 5.0). I kind am satisfied with Lollipop, it has a nice UI and it’s pretty fast – although speed isn’t an issue anyway for this little monster.

There’s some bloatware though which you want to get rid of. After installing the new system operation there are several different gallery apps and various music and movie players which could easily be avoided. Thankfully, you can uninstall everything, so you can easily purge your phone if those apps are of no use to you – it just takes some time and patience.

On the other had battery life is pretty much flawless – if we compare the Z3 to other tablets.  While the slate’s 4,500mAh battery isn’t oversized for an 8-inch tablet, it lasted between 13.5 and 14 hours in our standard looping-video rundown test from a full charge (I ran it a few times to be sure I was getting an accurate result). To put that into perspective, that’s among the best results any tablets ever achieved.

A pretty good Xperience!

Sony’s Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is an elegant piece of hardware. Yes it has it downsides: it has a pretty terrible camera, some mediocre stereo speakers and the whole Remote play experience could be a bit more refined too. On the flipside, though, it has a fantastic display (even if it is only a 1080p panel), outstanding performance and a long battery life.

If you want a slick, elegant tablet, where web browsing and Android gaming are both a perfect experience (and Remote play is fine too, if you have good Wi-Fi conditions) and don’t mind about using your smartphone if you want better photos, than the Xperia Z3 Compact Tablet is a blast.

-BadSector-