Sony Xperia Tablet Z review: Stepping up

Google Now

As an integral part of Android Jelly Bean Google Now is present on the Sony Xperia Tablet Z. You can get to it by holding the home button.

In addition to being able to recognize voice commands, Google Now will learn from your usage patterns, and display relevant information. For example, if you search for a particular sports team frequently, Google Now will display information for upcoming games you might want to watch.

Google Now predicts what info you need right now

The service interacts with you by generating cards which are displayed on your screen and give you a short overview of information it believes is relevant to you. Going to work in the morning? Google Now knows this and lets you know there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office, and will offer you an alternate route. This extends to a multitude of other areas, including weather, traffic, public transit stations, and nearby points of interest.

You can either type or talk to Google Now and the app will give you one of its aforementioned info cards (if available) and read you its contents aloud (you can disable this from the app settings). If there's no card to help with the answer to your question, Google Now will simply initiate a Google web search instead.

There is also a Google Now widget which generates information for you based on what your interests are.

Google Now has a card-based interface • Google Now widgets

Synthetic benchmarks

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z uses the same chipset as its phone counterpart and has almost the same screen resolution - 1920 x 1200 vs. 1920 x 1080 - so we expect to see similar performance.

The CPU benchmarks, Benchmark Pi, Linpack and Geekbench 2 indeed put the two close together, though the Xperia Z / ZL duo has a slight advantage in Linpack. Still, it has a comfortable lead on the Google Nexus 10 tablet in the first two tests, but loses to it in Geekbench 2.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  262
• Sony Xperia ZL
  264
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• Google Nexus 10
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia ZL
  631
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  587.7
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• Google Nexus 10
  172.1

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  3227
• LG Optimus G Pro
  3040
• HTC One
  2708
• Google Nexus 10
  2543
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2200
• Sony Xperia Z
  2173
• HTC Butterfly
  2143
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1995
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• iPhone 5
  1601

AnTuTu and Quadrant, which test the whole system (CPU, GPU, storage, etc.), continue this trend - the Xperia Tablet Z performs closely to the phone Xperia Z and ahead of the Nexus 10.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• Sony Xperia ZL
  20743
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  20216
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Google Nexus 10
  12695

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• Sony Xperia ZL
  7912
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  7215
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Nexus 4
  4567
• Google Nexus 10
  4385

GLBenchmark shows a playable 32fps framerate on the older 2.5 Egypt benchmark (a few frames per second ahead of the Z / ZL phones), but the new, heavier 2.7 T-Rex benchmark drops the framerate down to 13fps. This benchmark is considerably heavier than current generation games.

The Nexus 10 is ahead with its Mali-604 GPU, but its native screen resolution is much higher than the WUXGA of the Xperia Tablet Z so it takes a more powerful GPU to run.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad 4
  54.4
• Google Nexus 10
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  40
• HTC One
  34
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  32
• Asus Padfone 2
  31
• Oppo Find 5
  30
• Sony Xperia ZL
  29
• Sony Xperia Z
  29
• LG Optimus G
  29
• HTC Butterfly
  27.9
• Apple iPhone 5
  27
• Nexus 4
  26
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15
• HTC One X+
  12
• HTC One X
  9

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8

Epic Citadel is closer to what current Android games are like and shows the Tablet Z close to the 60fps software limit. That means that most of the time it runs at 60fps, with more complex areas dropping lower but without major drops. Here you can see the high resolution of the Nexus 10 work against it, making it just about even with the Tablet Z.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  57.1
• HTC One
  56.4
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  56.4
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• Sony Xperia ZL
  55.4
• LG Optimus G Pro
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• Google Nexus 10
  52.1
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

SunSpider shows relatively sluggish JavaScript performance, but that's usually the case with Chrome for Android. The stock browser performs better, but is not available on the Xperia Tablet Z. The Nexus 10 is slightly faster.

Browser Mark 2 puts the tablet close to the current Android flagships as does Vellamo. The Sony tablet pulled ahead of the Google Nexus 10 in those two benchmarks.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• HTC One
  1124
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1290
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Google Nexus 10
  1462
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  1629
• Nexus 4
  1971

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2438
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2265
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2186
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2060
• Google Nexus 10
  1929
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Nexus 4
  1310