Very slim and light, genuinely useful keyboard, powerful processor, waterproof and dust resistant, good battery life
Tablet and keyboard need to be charged separately, not cheap
Sony's latest tablet hero has a little trick up its sleeve -- the Xperia Z4 Tablet comes with its own dedicated Bluetooth keyboard, giving it all the capability of a laptop. Or at least, that's the theory.
Design
The first thing that strikes you about the Z4 Tablet is just how thin and lightweight it is. Even though we expect our tech not to be overly bulky these days, it's shockingly skinny at just 6.1mm and feels distinctly waif-like at just 389g. That's just the tablet of course, but even with the keyboard added, it's only 770g and 11mm thick, stretching to 22mm at the hinge. That's still a very compact package. And like other high-end Xperias these days, the slate is water- and dust-proof, with an IP68 rating, which means it can handle a half-hour dip in fresh water down to a metre's depth.
The tablet clips into the keyboard via a sturdy dock. Ideally this element of the design would have been a little more svelte, but then it probably wouldn't be so robust. Once you've paired it by Bluetooth it automatically detects when you've placed it in the cradle and some additional controls float up onto the screen. You can then control it using either the touchscreen or the keyboard.
And the BKB50 keyboard that comes with the Z4 Tablet is not bad at all. Despite its thinness, there's a reasonable degree of travel with the keys and it feels robust enough to take a bit of a pounding without you worrying about damaging it. It's not flawless though -- for instance you can only use the trackpad or keys, not both at once, which can lead to a little bit of a delay when you switch between the two. And you have to charge both devices separately, which can get fiddly.
Screen and processor
The screen is an impressively sharp 10.1-inch expanse of glass with a considerably better than HD resolution of 2,560x1,600 pixels. It's packing Sony's Live Color LED and Triluminos technology, which in real terms means it delivers a bright, sharp and colour-accurate display -- not as vibrant as some perhaps, but then it doesn't look over saturated either.
The 64-bit octa-core processor clocked at 2GHz is backed by 3GB RAM and it's a hefty enough beast to cope with whatever you want to throw at it, from multi-tasking to power-hungry HD games. We found no lack of oomph or any evidence of lag whatever we did. This being a premium Sony device, it supports Remote Play, so you can stream your PS4 to the screen and use it with your controller -- handy if you can't get to your main screen or want to share.
Camera
The 8.1-megapixel camera on the back has autofocus but no flash, and lots of features to play around with. But while picture quality is reasonable, with accurate colours and a fair level of detail, it's nothing special. More useful on a tablet perhaps is the 5.1-megapixel camera on the front, which will serve you well for video calls.
There's 32GB of memory on board as standard, which is okay if not outstanding. Fortunately, you can add another 128GB via microSD card. Battery life held up pretty well, with the sizeable 6,000mAh power pack (where has Sony put it?) delivering nearly two days of steady use.
Conclusion
The Z4 Tablet is not as powerful as something like the Microsoft Surface 3, which also relies on its keyboard cover to give it its edge over rivals, but it's slimmer and lighter and available for a similar price. Ultimately, it's a great little tablet, whether for work or play.
Software: Android 5.0 Lollipop
Processor: Octa-core 64-bit 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810
Memory slot: Yes
Display: 10.1in HD, 2560x1600 pixels
Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1
Ports: microUSB, 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera: 8.1 megapixel with autofocus, Exmor RS sensor, LED flash; 5.1 megapixel front-facing camera
Video playback: 3GPP, MP4, WebM, .MKV
Audio playback: MP3, 3GPP, MP4, SMF, WAV, OTA, Ogg vorbis, WMA
Radio: Yes
Battery: 6000mAh
Size: 254x167x6.1mm
- Read the WIRED Recommends guides to the best tablets, the best Android tablets and the best tablets for kids for more buying advice. When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we earn a small affiliate commission. This does not impact the products we recommend
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
