Sony Xperia ZL review: Off the bench

Off the bench

GSMArena team, 24 April 2013.

Raw performance

The Sony Xperia ZL uses a Snapdragon APQ8064 S4 Pro chipset, the same that powers the Xperia Z. It packs four Krait CPU cores clocked at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 GPU. Just like we expected it scores the same results on the synthetic benchmarks as the Xperia Z.

Despite there are already available faster quad-core processors - the Krait 300 from the Snapdragon 600 chipset (Galaxy S4, Optimus G Pro) and the Cortex-A15 (Galaxy S4), the Xperia ZL CPU still does a great job and will handle even the heaviest tasks hassle-free.

It comes up fourth in Benchmark Pi (which is all about single-threaded performance), it's also fourth in Linpack (which focuses on multithreading), fourth in AnTuTu and fifth in Quadrant compound benchmarks.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S4
    132
  • LG Optimus G Pro
    147
  • HTC One
    151
  • 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
  • HTC One X (Tegra 3)
    330
  • LG Optimus 4X HD
    350
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    359
  • Meizu MX 4-core
    362
  • 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
  • Samsung Galaxy Note II
    214.3
  • Nexus 4
    213.5
  • Meizu MX 4-core
    189.1
  • HTC One X+
    177.7
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    175.5
  • HTC One X
    160.9
  • LG Optimus 4X HD
    141.5

AnTuTu

Higher is better

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

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
  • Oppo Find 5
    7111
  • HTC One X
    5952
  • Samsung Galaxy Note II
    5916
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    5450
  • Meizu MX 4-core
    5170
  • Nexus 4
    4567

Interestingly, the Xperia ZL scored less than the Xperia Z on GeekBench 2.

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S4
    3227
  • LG Optimus G Pro
    3040
  • HTC One
    2708
  • Sony Xperia Z
    2173
  • HTC Butterfly
    2143
  • Sony Xperia ZL
    1995
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    1845
  • LG Optimus G
    1723
  • LG Optimus 4X HD
    1661
  • iPhone 5
    1601

We ran GLBenchmark off-screen, which means we're testing at a fixed resolution, which lets us test the raw GPU power. The Xperia ZL didn't disappoint, scoring as high as the Xperia Z Oppo Find 5 and the Nexus 4, and a tad better than the iPhone 5, though the Snapdragon 600-powered HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 did notably better.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S4
    40
  • HTC One
    34
  • 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

But most games will probably want to run at native resolution, so we're including Epic Citadel, which uses Unreal Engine 3. Unreal Engine is popular with mobile game makers, so it's a pretty important test. The benchmark was run at the High Quality setting and yet the Xperia ZL did as good as the rest of the flagships participating in our chart.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S4
    57.1
  • HTC One
    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
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    41.3
  • Oppo Find 5
    38.6

Just like other droids that come with Google Chrome as default web browser we expected mid-range performance, but as it turns out Chrome has become a lot faster after its latest software update. The Xperia ZL scored 1290ms on SunSpider, faster than the Xperia Z, LG Optimus G and Nexus 4.

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
  • Meizu MX 4-core
    1312
  • Sony Xperia Z
    1336
  • LG Optimus G
    1353
  • HTC Butterfly
    1433
  • Nexus 4
    1971
  • Oppo Find 5
    2045

In BrowserMark 2 and the HTCM5 Vellamo test the Xperia ZL occupied the fourth place.

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

  • LG Optimus G
    2555
  • Samsung Galaxy S4
    2438
  • HTC One
    2262
  • Sony Xperia ZL
    2107
  • Sony Xperia Z
    2093
  • LG Optimus G Pro
    1801
  • Oppo Find 5
    1797
  • Nexus 4
    1794
  • Nokia Lumia 920
    1774
  • Nokia Lumia 820
    1760
  • Samsung Omnia W
    1632
  • HTC Butterfly
    1475
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    1247

Vellamo

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy Note II
    2418
  • HTC One
    2382
  • Sony Xperia Z
    2189
  • Sony Xperia ZL
    2186
  • HTC One X (Tegra 3)
    2078
  • Samsung Galaxy S4
    2060
  • HTC Butterfly
    1866
  • Oppo Find 5
    1658
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    1641
  • LG Optimus 4X HD
    1568
  • LG Optimus G
    1522
  • Meizu MX 4-core
    1468
  • Nexus 4
    1310

To sum things up, Sony once again has managed to extract more performance from the four Krait cores than any manufacturer to use this chipset. The Adreno 320 GPU does equally well - it manages playable frame rates using a real-world 3D engine at FullHD resolution. It's hardly a surprise then, that the overall user experience with this one is smooth as butter.

Reader comments

  • Nima
  • 24 Jun 2018
  • Jd@

Can anyone give me an account of zl's battery life? I am going to give a test go, but afraid that it won't last one day, being less than 2600mAh. Can anyone give me the real user exp opinion please?

  • Best Phone
  • 17 May 2018
  • tE{

I brought this phone 3yrs ago.. still it's awesome.. upgraded to Android 5.1 OS.. If you want to upgrade to Android 8.1 you can install custom ROM from XDA.

  • manish
  • 09 Jan 2015
  • rKJ

I m using this phone n its has very nice look and from last 1 year it never hangs, its my best phone in sony n as compared to all Samsung phones.the 3g works good the pre install apps r nice n one thing the touch is awesome no any complaints for perf...