Sony might not have revealed its flagship Z4 smartphone here at MWC (it left that to Samsung and HTC), but it did lift the curtains off the next best thing – the Z4 Tablet.
On paper, it’s the Japanese tech giant’s best tablet to date, and looks set to be a formidable contender agains this year’s upcoming offerings from the likes of Apple and Samsung.
We spent a little time with the Z4 Tablet before its official announcement, and whipped up some initial impressions. Stay tuned for our full in-depth review to see if it’s got the chops to smash itself into the top 10 best tablets in the world rankings.
Floaty light
Sony says that the Z4 Tablet is the world’s lightest 10in slate, and holding it in our hands, we’re inclined to agree with them. Measuring in at a mere 6.1mm and tipping the scales at 389g, it won’t tone your arm muscles, despite the screen real estate on offer, and the thinner bezels nicely contribute to the overall sleekness.
The build quality is exactly what we expect to see from a Sony flagship, and it feels very solid in the hands. Its matte-plastic finish might not lend it the premium cool metal feel of an iPad, but it’s still far from feeling cheap and has the bonus of extra grip.
It did appear to pick up a fair few smudges and marks, mind, though that could have due to our wet fingers. Speaking of which…
Skinny dipping
The Z4 Tablet is naturally blessed with Sony’s expected IP68 rated water-shunning magic. That means it’ll happily swim about in up to one metre of water for 30 minutes, and our vigorously scientific ‘drop in a fish bowl’ test proved its stubbornness to succumb to the wet stuff.
A welcome addition to its waterproof skills is the obliteration of the microUSB flap. One of our grips with waterproof Xperia devices has always been that pesky port plug, which makes charging a bit of a hassle and it’s always looked rather clunky.
The Z4 Tablet is however blessed with a microUSB port that’s able to keep water out, despite being bare to the world. The newly unveiled Xperia M4 Aqua is also flap-less, and we’ll eat our SIM cards if the next S4 flagship smartphone doesn’t land with the same sleek open microUSB port.
Bright spark, sharp screen
Sony boasts that the its new slate also has the world’s brightest 2K Tablet display, and our eyes can back this up. In the dim kitchen of a trendy Shoreditch hotel event room, the screen pumped out more than enough light for comfortable viewing. We were unable to take it for a spin outside to see how it fared against the sun, but we’ll be doing just that in our final review.
The 2K resolution (300ppi) is a first for a Sony tablet, and is an improvement over the full HD screen of both the Z2 Tablet and Z3 Tablet Compact. While we didn’t have them side by side, our eyes were more than pleased with the sharp details and accurate colours churned out by the S4 Tablet’s display.
Viewing angles also hold up well, although we did notice a smidgen of backlight bleeding on the left side of the display. Although it wasn’t that noticeable (especially when facing the screen directly), we’re hoping that it’s a kink that’ll be ironed out in the final retail models.
Raw speed
The Z4 Tablet will naturally land running Android Lollipop 5.0, and will pack the power of Qualcomm’s latest octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, along with 3GB of RAM. On paper, it’s a beast, and we certainly didn’t notice any lag or stuttering during our time with it.
We’ll have to wait for our full review to see how it holds up in the real world however, but unless something goes drastically wrong, it should have enough power to handle everything you throw at it – and then some.
Happy snapper
We’re not one to promote taking photos with a tablet, but if you insist, then the 8MP rear snapper of the Z4 Tablet appears to offer decent enough shots, though they come out fuzzier than ones taken with a smartphone.
The 5MP front-facing camera has a wide-angle lens for video chat (and, if you really, really insist, selfies). We weren’t able to video call anyone (though we do have friends, honest), so we’re saving that for our full review too.
Initial verdict
The Xperia Z4 Tablet is definitely Sony’s best effort yet. A sharper screen, a solid, premium build, fast insides and improved waterproof design all make for a very compelling package.
It’s too early to give a definitive final verdict, but we’ll be jumping into our final review with high hopes, so stay tuned.
Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet review
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