Sony Xperia Tablet S review: The tablet Xperiance

Synthetic benchmarks

We ran practically every benchmark we could think of, testing the CPU (four Cortex-A9 cores at 1.3GHz in the Tablet S), the GPU (an ULP GeForce) and the web browser (stock browser on Android ICS and Chrome).

BenchmarkPi is good at estimating per-core performance and the Xperia Tablet S does very well here. It comes second only to the higher-clocked Samsung Galaxy Note II, but beats the Tegra 3-packing Nexus 7.

Linpack is better at multi-tasking performance. Here, the Tablet S maintains its lead on the Nexus 7, but falls behind the Exynos-powered Galaxies (whose CPUs are clocked higher). Geekbench 2 concurs with these findings.

AnTuTu shows that the performance of the Sony tablet is comparable to a Tegra 3 phone. Quadrant puts it a bit behind, but the tablet is at a bit of a disadvantage due to its higher screen resolution (1280 x 800 vs. 1280 x 720).

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  364
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  366
• Google Nexus 7
  421
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
  495

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  185
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  146.5
• Google Nexus 7
  124.3

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  1834
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  1634
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  1628
• Nexus 7
  1582

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  13562
• Meizu MX 4-core
  11820
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  11735
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  11633
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  11630
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  10767

Quadrant

Higher is better

• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5365
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5121
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  4814
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  4107

Time to look at the ULP GeForce performance. NenaMark 2 doesn’t really give us any significant result beyond that the PowerVR SGX540 that's inside the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is getting too old to be in a tablet.

The offscreen Egypt GLBenchmark tests were used to put the GPUs on equal footing. The SGX543MP4 inside the new iPad normally renders graphics at a much higher resolution than even 1080p, so it's far ahead.

Oddly, the Sony Xperia Tablet S comes out last in this test, even behind the Nexus 7, which has the same GPU.

NenaMark 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  59.2
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  58.9
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  57.8
• Google Nexus 7
  55.6
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
  23.8

GLBenchmark 2.1 Egypt (720p offscreen)

Higher is better

• new Apple iPad
  133.4
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  100.2
• Google Nexus 7
  64.4
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  34

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• new Apple iPad
  26.7
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  14.7
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  15.2
• Google Nexus 7
  11.8
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  11

Finally, the browser. For SunSpider and BrowserMark we used the default browsers on each tablet. Samsung has done a great job of optimizing the browser on Exynos (less so on TI OMAP), but the Xperia Tablet S actually edges out Apple's latest tablet, which is no small achievement.

Vellamo puts it behind all the quad-core phones we've tested though.

Finally, FishIE Tank shows good HTML5 canvas performance, though it doesn’t beat the quad-core phones. As far as HTML5 compatibility goes, if you're running Chrome on the Tablet S, you'd be on par with the current flagship phones, except the Galaxy S III, which has an advantage.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  1194
• Google Nexus 7
  1703
• new Apple iPad
  1722
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  1750
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
  2188

BrowserMark

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  185034
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  162657
• Google Nexus 7
  131788
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  118764
• new Apple iPad
  103264
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
  94662

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1890
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1468
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  1261

FishIE Tank

Higher is better

• Meizu MX 4-core
  60
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  57
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  55
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  54
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  54

HTML5 Test

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S III
  399
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  380
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  380
• Meizu MX 4-core
  380
• Sony Xpria Tablet S
  380

Unsurprisingly, the Xperia Tablet S doesn’t break far from the pack and does about as well as most other Tegra 3 tablets, Sony has done a relatively good job at providing a well-performing package. The GPU scores could have been a bit better, but the rest is good (and will only get better once the Tablet S gets the Jelly Bean update).