Sony Announces the Xperia Z4 Tablet
by Brandon Chester on March 2, 2015 1:01 AM EST
Although much of the focus on Sony's work in the mobile space is on their smartphones, they have been a player in the tablet segment of the market for quite some time. In fact, Sony has been responsible for some of the more unique tablet designs, such as the Sony Tablet P which had two displays and folded much like a Nintendo DS.
When focusing on what we traditionally think of as a tablet, one will see that the flagship device in Sony's lineup has always been their 10.1" tablet offering. These devices are usually named in the same "Xperia Z" format as Sony's flagship smartphones, and although the tablet released last year was the Xperia Z2 Tablet, the release of the Xperia Z3 Compact Tablet late last year means that this year's release moves ahead to Z4. The Xperia Z4 tablet is Sony's flagship tablet, and the first of 2015's high end Android tablets. To give an overview of the Z4 Tablet on paper, I've laid out its core specifications below.
| Sony Xperia Tablet Z2 | Sony Xperia Tablet Z4 | |
| SoC | 2.3GHz Snapdragon 801 (APQ8074AB) with 4 x Krait 400 + Adreno 330 | Snapdragon 810 with 4 x Cortex-A57 at 2.0GHz and 4 x Cortex-A53 at 1.6GHz + Adreno 430 |
| RAM/NAND | 3GB LPDDR3 + 16/32GB NAND + MicroSD | 3 GB LPDDR4 + 32GB NAND + MicroSD (SDXC) |
| Display | 10.1" 1920x1200 LCD | 10.1" 2560x1600 LCD |
| Network | WiFi only or 2G / 3G / 4G LTE SKU | WiFi only or 2G / 3G / 4G LTE SKU |
| Dimensions | 266 x 172 x 6.4 mm, 426g | 254 x 167 x 6.1mm thick, 389g WiFi, 393g LTE |
| Camera | 13MP Rear Facing with F/2.0 aperture and OIS, 2MP FFC 4K video recording |
8MP Rear Facing, 5MP Front Facing |
| Battery | 6000 mAh (22.8 Whr) | 6000 mAh (22.8 Whr) |
| OS | Android 4.4.2 KitKat | Android 5.0 Lollipop |
| Connectivity | 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, MHL, NFC | WiFi + BT 4.1, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, ?, NFC |
Inside the Xperia Z4 Tablet we have Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 SoC, which has four Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores running at 2.0GHz and 1.6GHz respectively, along with Qualcomm's new Adreno 430 GPU. The internal battery remains the same capacity as the Z2 Tablet at 6000mAh (22.8Wh), but the tablet has been slimmed down to 6.1mm which puts it on par with Apple's iPad Air 2.
Moving to the outside of the tablet, we see that Sony has placed an 8MP camera on the rear, and a 5.1MP camera on the front. The front of the device is also home to the 10.1" 2560x1600 LCD display. Like many of Sony's recent devices, the Z4 Tablet is both dust and water resistant. It has an IP68 rating for which Sony specifies an immersion depth of up to 1.5 meters for up to thirty minutes, which goes a bit beyond the typical 1 meter for 30 minutes IP67 rating on many other mobile devices
According to Sony, the Xperia Z4 Tablet will be launching globally in June. It will come in both WiFi and LTE variants, with pricing yet to be revealed.
Source: Sony
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PC Perv - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
Please do not write about Android devices that you do not use and will never use. Be honest about it.JatkarP - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
Haha...True :-)Valantar - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
...okay? So a tech journalist's job is to reiterate on the magnificence and dominance of Samsung and Apple, and leave all these hopeless 'competitors' in the dark, lest they ever actually make a great product that might somehow threaten the current ruling class?Sony's problem in the mobile space is mainly one of image, marketing and market penetration. They're losing massively due to seeming inability to penentrate the US market. True, their Android skin feels a bit dated, but their previous two generations of phones have beat Samsung, HTC and Apple in major ways (especially battery life). Their tablets are also great, but Samsung owns the high-end of Android tablets, a market that is in decline as well.
If Sony got their phones onto US carriers and launched a large-scale ad campaign alongside (like Samsung does constantly), they would be a very serious competitor in the Android space.
name99 - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
Hey, if you want to watch movies in the shower, it's one of the few viable options these days...henrik - Thursday, March 5, 2015 - link
Excuse the rant below, in short:Sony tablets are desired and sell quite well, just not everywhere in the world.
Rant:
I'm sorry PC Perv, but I'm guessing your view is a bit narrow and perhaps US-centric? I apologize if I'm jumping to conclusions. This story is relevant, and I appreciate how Anandtech has openly discussed how they try to handle a global audience throughout the years. Since finding Anandtech in the late 90's I have spread the word about the quality I found here in quiet ever since. Unfortunately, I still amend my recommendations to others with a need to filter out some parts that differ from our European ideas. Your comment simply reminded me about this.
piroroadkill - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
A smaller screen and no microSD. Hm, failing to see the compelling "improvements" here.Raniz - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
Both screens are 10.1" and the Z4 and 2560x1440, how is that smaller?Also, the article here doesn't list the full memory specifications (check the source link).
piroroadkill - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
2560×1440 - 1.77 AR1920×1200 - 1.6 AR
The old one has an area of 45.85 square inches. The new one is only 43.59 square inches
Brandon Chester - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
It's actually 16:10 (2560x1600). Like Josh said below, we haven't been receiving full spec sheets and so there's some unknowns and some confusion. Sorry about that.Raniz - Monday, March 2, 2015 - link
You should update the table with memory specifications. According to the source link the tablet has 3GB RAM and a MicroSD slot.