Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact Review (2024)

The Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is a victim of circ*mstance. It's a stunningly thin and light, premium Android tablet that gets almost everything right. Unfortunately, it exists at a time when premium Android tablets have fallen all but completely out of favor in the eyes of the tech world and consumers alike. Few people need a glitzy, whiz-bang tablet, and even fewer people are willing to pay the $499.99 (32GB) asking price for one that isn't from Apple. The Z3 Tablet Compact is a beautiful midsized tablet, but nearly impossible to recommend over the superior Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 ($629.99 at Samsung) and Apple iPad mini 3 , both of which also cost $100 less.

Design and Features
Sony's "OmniBalance" design language is well-established at this point—the Z3 Tablet Compact looks like a stretched-out Z3smartphone . I'm a fan of the unembellished sensibilities, but it's beginning to look a touch staid and the all-plastic design doesn't befit the premium price. Personal preferences aside, the Z3 Tablet Compact is wafer-thin, incredibly light, and surprisingly sturdy, measuring 8.4 by 4.87 by 0.25 inches and weighing in at a mere 9.52 ounces. That's thinner and lighter than the Tab S (0.26 inches and 11.6 ounces) and the mini 3 (0.29 inches and 11.68 ounces). Sporting an IP68 waterproof rating, the Z3 Tablet Compact is safe for bath time or poolside entertainment.

The 8-inch, 1,920-by-1,200-pixel display is excellent, boasting impressive maximum brightness, wide viewing angles, and respectable contrast for an LCD panel. Taken in isolation, you'll find little to complain about, but it's no match for the Tab S's spectacular AMOLED, which is sharper, brighter, and more vibrant. The two front-facing speakers have more than enough power for watching movies or casual music listening, but as with all tablet speakers, they lack depth and oomph in the low end.

The Z3 Tablet Compact is a Wi-Fi-only device, with support for 802.11b/g/n/ac networks on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. I didn't notice quite as many Wi-Fi issues as with the Z2 Tablet, but in side-by-side tests, the Tab S 8.4 consistently showed stronger reception and better speeds. Also onboard are GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 radios, both of which worked fine in my tests.

Performance and Android
Equipped with a quad-core 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB RAM, the Z3 tablet compact has plenty of power for casual users and enthusiasts alike. It's essentially the same setup found on last year's full-sized Z2 Tablet, but with a slightly higher clock speed. Performance won't match the Nexus 9's ($599.00 at Amazon) souped-up Tegra K1 chip, but it handily beats the Exynos-powered Tab S 8.4, especially in graphical tests.

The Z3 Tablet Compact runs Android 4.4.4 with Sony's familiar customizations. I actually prefer the sparse styling over the me-too flat look employed by LG and Samsung. Functionally, Sony's quick settings implementation lags behind stock Android and other custom skins, offering fewer options and less flexibility. There are some mild changes from what we saw on the Z2 Tablet , including a return of the app dock and home screen layout changes based on screen orientation. Small apps offer rudimentary multitasking that feels stunted in functionality when compared with Samsung or LG's robust implementations. You're limited to basic apps like calculators and notepads, while the mini Web browser was the only app I really ever used.

Of the 32GB of internal storage, 24.1GB are available to users out of the box. That's plenty of storage for even a large collection of resource-heavy apps, and for even more media storage, the microSD card slot accepts cards up to 64GB.

In a battery rundown test, where we streamed a YouTube video over Wi-Fi with screen brightness set to maximum, the Z3 Tablet Compact lasted for 9 hours, 48 minutes. That's short of the Tab S 8.4's impressive 11 hours, 52 minutes in the same test, but still very respectable.

Camera and Conclusions
Like most tablet cameras, the 8.1-megapixel rear-facing sensor takes respectable shots in well-lit scenarios, but starts to falter under harsh indoor light and low light. Overall performance is similar to the Tab S, though I'd give a slight edge to the Z3 Tablet Compact. Video tops out at 1080p and footage shot outdoors under good light looks crisp and lifelike, but image grain robs footage of detail under indoor lighting. Sony also includes its familiar array of augmented reality "lenses" that superimpose things like dinosaurs or plants onto scenes shot through the rear-facing camera.

The Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is a refined, powerful Android tablet that exudes the premium feel Sony hangs its hat on. But pricing the tablet at full-sized iPad Air 2 ($445.00 at eBay) levels seems misguided, especially as demand for premium Android tablets continues to decline. Those still in the market for a high-end Android tablet should turn their attention towards the Editors' Choice-winning Galaxy Tab S 8.4, which has the best display of any tablet, and a lowerprice tag than the Z3 Tablet Compact.