Sony Xperia ZL review: Off the bench

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.