Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet hands-on
Sony almost made us fall in love with its most recent tablet, the water-tight Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact. But Sony has a new kid on the block, the brand-new Xperia Z4 Tablet that was announced at MWC earlier today. From the get-go, we are dealing with a large, 10.1-inch slate that is touted as being the slimmest tablet in the world right now, beating its rivals by a pretty small margin while still pertaining the waterproof feature that has been a standard for Sony's more recent devices. But is this a recipe for success?
As far as build materials are concerned, the tablet is made of plastic, but don't avert your eyes just yet! It's not among the best-looking tablets we've seen, but the plastic used for he rear is pretty comfortable to the feel, somewhat resembling the "glam" cover of the Samsung Galaxy S5.
Design
As we mentioned, the Xperia Z4 Tablet is a pretty thin tablet - at just 6.1mm thick, it boasts the same thickness as the Apple iPad Air 2, but we assume that Sony is aware of that. As a result, we suppose that the Japan-based maker has made its newest slate just a hair thinner than the latest Cupertino tablet. The Xperia Z4 Tablet is thin, but quite large as well - after all, it flaunts a 10.1-inch 2K display up front. Still, it's ultra light, tipping the scales at merely 389gr.
It also strikes us that the tablet has some quite large bezels - normally, these allow you to comfortably hold the slate and rest your thumbs on the frames, but not just everybody will instantaneously fall in love with the design of the tablet. As a whole, it feels like a solid, well-built gadget.
Display
As we mentioned, we have a 10.1-inch display up front, with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. The Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact had a hate-it-or-love it display with a pretty high maximum brightness yet quite color-inaccurate, and we are hoping that Sony has learned its lesson and put a better screen inside its new slate.
It seems that this might be a fact, but we will refrain from making assumptions before we've measured the display - after all, we've been handling display units, which might differ from the final version.
Interface and functionality
The Xperia Z4 Tablet is powered by the sweet new take on Android, 5.0.2 Lollipop. We have Sony's minimalistic UI running on top, which was expected.
As usual, Sony's UI offering is not among the more feature-packed ones, but it's as lightweight as it gets. We suppose that Sony will focus on the multimedia features of the tablet, just like it did with the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and the Xperia Z2 Tablet.
Processor and memory
Sony has put a powerful 64-bit Snapdragon 810 octa-core chipset inside its new tablet, making it one of the first slates to come with the top-tier Qualcomm silicon, recently overshadowed by the Snapdragon 820. The silicon works seamlessly in concert with 3GB of RAM. Just as you might imagine, we are dealing with a powerful and respectable hardware setup not only as per tablet, but per smartphone standards as well.
From the get-go, you will be able to make use of 32GB of native storage. If this is not enough, you can always insert a microSD card in the on-board slot and enjoy your increased storage capacity.
At the back, we have a pretty size-able 6,000mAh battery at the back - considering that the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact with its 4,500mAh juicer was a long-lasting trooper, we can only imagine how long this new Sony will last. We won't be surprised if its breaks a record or two.
Camera
Cameras have never truly been the highlight of any tablet, but alas, it's a feature that has to be mentioned nonetheless. In particular, the Xperia Z4 Tablet comes with an 8MP rear camera that is touted as being promises to deliver in both good and dark lighting.
In the meantime, we have a 5MP selfie snapper at the front of the tablet. There is no flash at the back (unfortunately), but we suppose that Sony has something up the sleeve of its tablet to live up to the claims of the improved low-lighting performance.
Expectations
Sony has gone the safe way with the Xperia Z4 Tablet. Similar to the previous tablet offerings of the Japan-based maker, it's a streamlined and polished, well-built tablet that seemingly has the right properties to make us fall in platonic love with it. We'll have to spend more time with it before we can confirm this, but from the looks of it, Sony is on the right path.
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