Sony Xperia Z3+ review: The pre-sequel

Synthetic benchmarks

Update July 1: We got a retail Sony Xperia Z3+ unit and updated the scores and text below.

The Sony Xperia Z3+ is powered by none other than the controversial Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset. In theory that should mean a 2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A57 plus 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor which is joined by an Adreno 430 GPU and 3GB of RAM all of which make for a rather typical 2015 high-end setup.

We ran the entire battery of tests we typically do, and a few things became evident. One is that the phone quickly heats up when subjected to a serious load, but that was to be expected given the internals and the slim profile.

That said, it's not as bad as we've witnessed and the phone doesn't get as hot as to be unusable. It's almost full blown summer at headquarters however, so the conditions are as bad as the device would encounter in moderate climates.

The second thing to note, which is a result of the heat, is that benchmark performance drops significantly with consecutive runs. That's not surprising either, but the dip in performance meant that in Antutu, for example, the numbers plummeted from a 55K first run to as low as 46K as the runs ramped up.

The great performance in the first runs proved our initial guess that throttling down due to the heat hinders the phone's performance.

With that preamble, we can now move on to actual scores. First up is the CPU-centric Geekbench test, where the pre-production Xperia Z3+ managed to handily defeat the retail unit.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  5215
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  3772
• HTC One M9
  3761
• LG G4 (final)
  3522
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  3402
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  3394
• Motorola Nexus 6
  3285
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  3094
• Apple iPhone 6
  2924
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  2884
• Sony Xperia Z3
  2860

The same goes for the AnTuTU 5 test where the retail Xperia Z3+ was bottle-necked by its heat issues, scoring a 33k initial result. After a sufficient cool down it managed a much betteer score but one not worthy of the pre-production unit we tested.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  69396
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  55195
• HTC One M9
  51427
• Motorola Nexus 6
  49803
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  49441
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  49273
• LG G4 (final)
  48693
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  45632
• Sony Xperia Z3
  40393

Basemark II 2.0 is next in line of the compound benchmarks and the Xperia Z3+ posts a respectable overall score, though the G Flex2 is the highest ranked S810 device here, and it beats the Galaxy S6 too. The retail unit once again lagged behind in score and falls to last place among this elite comoany.

Both the single-core and multi-core results of the Xperia Z3+ are underwhelming and the retail unit was close but once again behind the first device we tested.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  1674
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  1479
• HTC One M9
  1365
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  1353
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  1267
• Motorola Nexus 6
  1267
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  1226

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  6306
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  6165
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  6068
• Motorola Nexus 6
  5624
• HTC One M9
  4688
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  4370
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  2764

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  26799
• Motorola Nexus 6
  21026
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  18386
• HTC One M9
  18047
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  17882
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  17028
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  11899

Graphics performance puts the Z3+ towards the top of the charts, thanks to the Adreno 430 GPU. Once again we see the pre-production unit notch itself a fictory overthe finalized one.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  27169
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  23334
• Motorola Nexus 6
  20901
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  20767
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  20043
• HTC One M9
  19848
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18297
• Apple iPhone 6
  17054
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  13075
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12637

GFXBench shows almost exact framerates between the two devices we tested. Both are still towards the top of the current crop of high-enders. In the off-screen version (rendered at 1080p for all devices) of the lighter T-Rex routine, the Xperia Z3+ trails behind the S810 HTC One (M9), but not by much. Lesser Snapdragons are all behind. The on-screen test, rendered at the device's actual resolution continues that trend.

Not much changes in the more intense Manhattan test, where the Z3+ is again marginally behind the G Flex2 and One M9.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  59
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  50
• HTC One M9
  49
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  46.5
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  44.6
• Apple iPhone 6
  42.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  40
• Motorola Nexus 6
  38.9
• LG G4 (final)
  34
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  28
• Sony Xperia Z3
  27.7

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6
  51
• HTC One M9
  50
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  46.8
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  46
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  38
• Sony Xperia Z3
  29.3
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  28
• Motorola Nexus 6
  27.4
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  26
• LG G4 (final)
  25

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  24
• HTC One M9
  23
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  20.7
• Motorola Nexus 6
  18.6
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  18
• Apple iPhone 6
  17.7
• LG G4 (final)
  15
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  11

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6
  29.2
• HTC One M9
  24
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  21
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  20.5
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  14
• Sony Xperia Z3
  12.7
• Motorola Nexus 6
  11.9
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  11
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  11
• LG G4 (final)
  9.4

The one area where the finalized Sony Xperia Z3+ disappointed the most was in browser performance. Results from the JavaScript Kraken 1.1 and HTML 5 BrowserMark dipped tremendously which could be due the use of Google Chrome over Sony's stock browser. The retail Xperia Z3+, like the Xperia Z4 tablet, arrived without the stock browser we used to test the pre-production units.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  4154
• LG G4 (final)
  4639
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  4650
• Apple iPhone 6
  4710
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  4745
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  5181
• HTC One M9
  5500
• Motorola Nexus 6
  6088
• Sony Xperia Z3
  6355
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  6382
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  9204

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3389
• Apple iPhone 6
  3153
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  2718
• Sony Xperia Z3+ pre-production
  2337
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Lollipop
  2232
• LG G4 (final)
  1992
• HTC One M9
  1681
• Sony Xperia Z3
  1533
• Motorola Nexus 6
  1447
• Sony Xperia Z3+ final
  1436
• Xiaomi Mi Note
  748

To sum it up we leave the Sony Xperia Z3+ performance worse than when we found it. The pre-production unit churned out far superior numbers compared to the retail one we received and we can't quite put a finger on the reason. Perhaps Sony has issued some throttling to the CPU in order to reduce heating but we can't be sure.

That's not to say the Sony Xperia Z3+ is a bad performer, on the contrary - we found it to be quite snappy and issues-free in real world operation. It just points to some synthetic-related nicks Sony can easily deal with via software.