Sony Z3 TC review
So, I’m running into my second second week with the
Z3TC. In this review I'm going to try
and detail what I love and what I hate (now that is a task. This tab is nearly
perfect, if not purely perfect). I’m going run through everything under specific
sub headings. Enjoy!
Screen
The screen on the Z3, though not the sharpest around, looks fantastic. Mind you, when I say not the sharpest around
in no way do I say it’s not sharp. It’s
very sharp, the display being a 1200x1920 LCD IPS panel, making the display resolution
over 1080p, which is more than necessary for crispy viewing!
The display has beautiful, punchy colours and reaches levels
of eye searing brightness (when I say that, I mean it! It’s very very very bright; accidently turn
it on at night and say bye to your eyes!
😉),
680 nits to be exact. This sort of takes its toll in max dimness, but for something
that isn’t an AMOLED panel, it’s good.
Blacks are black, and the whites are very white. I personally use the
X-Reality display setting, which make colours more saturated than normal, but if you don’t like that, Sony offers
comprehensive white balancing settings and 2 more modes of display
saturation, which are features not many
OEMs include.
Sunlight legibility is, of course no problem at all, as
you’d expect.
Reading is easy and enjoyable, the screen being perfect in
size (to me) for anything from browsing
the web, reading all my daily tech news feed and reading an eBook at
night.
Watching video is a delight, paired with the rather great
speakers. There are of course, two black
bars above and below the video if it is at 16:9 aspect, but it is nothing compared
to the two bars when watching video on an iPad for instance. This is because the
display is set to the 16:10 aspect ratio, away from the traditional 16:9. It’s
hardly noticeable though, being only about 0.5cm in from the bezels.
The screen size, 8” diagonally, is more or less the sweet
spot for tablets. Go below, it’s a bit
too small, go above, and it’s uncomfortable to hold. Stay within 8-8.4” and except
for some small compromises to a select audience, the tablet is easy to hold,
easy to store but big enough to offer a good reason not use your phone on the
same task (web browsing). 8” is my personal favourite for screen sizes and for
a great many people out there too.
But one thing makes this tablet stand out from the
others. And that’s lightness. That is
what makes the whole package so amazing!
It's very good and easy to read in sunlight:
Ergonomics
The Z3TC fits my hands very well. It’s a tablet that you can
hold perfectly well in one hand. Sure, it requires you to stretch out more than
you would for your phone, but its width is about the length of how far your
thumb and forefinger extend, so you’ll be used to it quickly. I’ve never really
experienced the feeling that I would fall off my hands except in the position
of changing my grasp on it, where you might finding yourself losing grip, but
that in itself is something you’d experience everyday on your phone.
The best thing about the Z3TC is how incredibly light it is.
It’s just 270g. You might think that’s heavier than your phone, but in contrast
to the huge screen and everything it packs in it, it feels like air. For comparison, Apple 5.5” iPhone 6s Plus
weighs 192g! It’s seriously light, you have to feel it for yourself.
The materials that the Z3TC are constructed are alright.
Sure, it feels more premium that a majority of the other expensive tabs out
there, but I’d have really liked the Z3TC to have followed the footsteps of the
smartphones; be made of glass and metal. But to ask a tab to be made of glass
seems stupid, so I think Sony made the only choice left open when they chose
the matte plastic back, metal not being part of their design language. To me,
there are no shortcomings to Z3TC design. It is what it should be, and there
are no signs of cheap design and cheap materials (*cough cough* Tab S).
From the front, the Z3TC looks stunningly sharp and
professional, with its beautiful display panel of glass and seamless design.
The display isn’t easy to scratch, and feels very sturdy, and it doesn’t have
the cheap ‘knocky’ plasticky feeling you have when you tap the display of the
iPad Air (once noticed, impossible to not notice).
Overall, I’m a fan of Sony’s Omni-balance design and it
really works for me.7
Performance
The Z3TC is equipped with the SnapDragon 801 and 3GB of RAM.
So as you’d expect the Z3TC, is incredibly snappy. I’ve never noticed it slow
down, and it breezes through all the tasks I require it to do, because 3GB of
RAM is almost overkill for such a tablet, and even most flagship tablets of
today don’t have it. It scrolls through screens flawlessly, handles browsing
like a king, multitasks like a king and… well, it does everything like a king
in my opinion. It’s perfect.
To show you what my tab is like, I’ve uploaded a video of
browsing the home-screens, playing Minecraft and watching video.
I’m going to put Sound under
Performance too, and to sum it up, the Z3TC has two great front facing
speakers. They get quite loud and still retain clarity too. Enough to serve as
the sole source of sound for a small room. Watching video or playing a game is
a great experience because of this, the sound being directed right up your
face. Other than the Nvidia Shield tablet and Nexus 9, I think this is the only
tablet that has dual front facing speakers. Like so many other have said before
me have said, it’s a wonder that other OEMs don’t include this on their
devices.
Battery
The battery on this just amazing. I nearly always achieve
over 8h of screen on time, and that is so incredibly useful and amazing,
meaning you can run 2 days without a worry, and 3 days with moderate usage.
Because of this, I’ve found all the phones are having increased time on because
we’re spending time browsing on this instead, and it’s a win-win situation. My
G2, I estimate wouldn’t need technically need to be charged for upto 3 days,
but of course I always plug it into charge every night with usually about 60%
remaining, so if your considering this as your only device, you’ll find
yourself only charging both your phone (it might, of course, depend) and tablet
once every 2-3 days.
As tested by PhoneArena, the Z3TC was hailed king of tablet
endurance (as of last year) but you’ll find that there still not many tablets
that can best this.
I think I should mention the built in QuickCharge feature,
which can charge your tablet in under 1:30 hours, which although I use, haven’t
really tested. It’s there if you wanted to know.
So overall, I’m very, very happy with the battery life on
this monster, and if you buy it, I’m sure you’ll see too.
UI
I’ve always been a fan of Sony’s stock UI, and as always
this is the same. I actually haven’t put any launchers on it, even though I’m
usually vocal about how people actually still use stock UIs on their devices.
Sony’s UI is beautifully simple and useful and it’s the only stock interface I
have only ever liked. I’m sticking with it.
I just love the looks, from the notification tray to the settings menus to
the icons. You’d never hear me say that about Touchwiz.
Sony has several extensive options for you to tinker with,
and although not as extensive as some that LG offers, you’ll find you don’t
actually need to mess with them to get your device running beautifully.
One thing I’d have loved to see though is apps that take use
of the big screen, like dual window. I always find myself using the Small
Window feature, but I’d really have appreciated more, because I love squeezing
productivity out of a device.
One tip: Buy a stylus, install OneNote or Evernote, and use
it as a notepad, something I find very useful for doing complex maths on.
(Check out the video under performance for a glimpse into the homscreen)
(Check out the video under performance for a glimpse into the homscreen)
Camera
One downfall of the Z3 is its camera. I really expected more
out of Sony camera wise on this. The rest of the Z3 series had great cameras
and I’d have loved it if Sony had jumped the fence and made a tablet with a
great camera (something virtually non-existent).
Still, the camera isn’t all as bad for a tab. It performs
well in good lighting, suffering badly in bad lighting. I’ll include some
photos I took on it for you to look at below.
The front facing camera (don’t you dare say selfie cam) is
relatively good, but something I never use. Picture included.
Still, I don’t think society has
a very good outlook on Tablet photographers.
Thanks to Google pretty cool photo sharing service, here are some picture taken from the Tablet itself:
And in case you wanted, a photo from the front facing camera:
WaterProofing/ Ingress Protection
This is a part I forgot to add, and if it wasn't for my friends at the Z3 Tablet Owners community, I don't think I'd have remembered.
The Z3TC, like all the products in the Z3 range is dust and water protected for a maximum of 1.5m in a maximum time of 30 minutes. This means that you're free to take this tablet into your pool or bath tub and watch Netflix while relaxing, or in a more usual case, use it without a problem on the beach or kitchen and just wash it off when you've finished.
But you must make sure the power and SD card slots are closed, or the water might seep in that way.
I myself haven't used this feature as of yet, but it was one reasons I bought over the completion. It's always good to know your protected!
(Try doing that with an iPad. ;-D)
Conclusion
I’ve always been a fan of Sony’s
devices and outlook, and this device is a worthy heir to that title. I’m very
impressed with it, and it has never let me down. It’s a truly great tablet and
to my purposes, has far, far more potential than an iPad. The only tablet that
could provide a worthy opponent to this is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S, but I’m
not a fan of Samsung’s design or values. This is the one and only.
One word on their successors, and
why I didn’t even mention them throughout. The Z4 is best tablet you can buy
today, after the Surface series, but it’s far too expensive, and as for the
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, well, it’s just a really bad iPad.
One thing I’d have wanted more
than any more improvement on the Z3TC is more base storage. Mine has only 16GB
and comes with only 11GB remaining, which is soo little in today’s standards.
Sure, it has MicroSD, but it’s not like you transfer most apps to the card. In
a week mine has only 2GB remaining. A tab really should come with more (there
is a 32GB version available, but I couldn’t find any).
So, if you’re looking for one,
here’s some links:
Oh, and if you're looking for more, look forward to our upcoming review of the Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge!
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