Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact review: Rain or shine

Performance

The Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact has a Snapdragon 801 at its heart - quad-core Krait 400 processor at 2.5GHz and Adreno 330 GPU. Sony has paired that with 3GB of RAM, making this one of the best-spec'd tablets on the market.

There's interesting competition in this size segment though - the Exynos 5420 powered Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and the Tegra K1 powered Xiaomi Mi 4.

Starting off with CPU benchmarks, the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact doesn't place very high but neither the Xperia Z2 Tablet nor the Xperia Z Ultra do much better in Geekbench 3. The no-cheat version of Basemark OS II showed no traces of benchmark rigging and gave the Z3 Tablet Compact an average overall score but a good multi-core performance. Also, a Krait 400 beats a Cortex-A15 one on one as both the Xiaomi and Samsung tablets demonstrate.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  3276
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  3165
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  2925
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  2884
• Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  2781
• Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
  2754
• Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  2748
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Apple iPad mini 2
  2512

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  1222
• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  1192
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  1181
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1168
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  1141
• Apple iPad mini 2
  1073
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  830
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  768

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  4031
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  2588
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  2334
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  2251
• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  1999
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  1911

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  15012
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  10413
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  9604
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  9446
• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  8547
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  5149

AnTuTu 5 puts the Sony tablet in between phablets like the Galaxy Note 4 (powered by Snapdragon 805) and the Ascend Mate7 (based on HiSilicon Kirin 925).

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  46824
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  42505
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  41510

Adreno 330 is a speedy GPU - other than the NVIDIA-powered Xiaomi Mi Pad, the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is one of the top performers. Here the on-screen results are only slightly worse than the standardized 1080p off-screen tests as the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact's resolution is nearly that - 1,920 x 1,200 pixels. Most other high-end tablets have higher resolution. It's on-screen results that count though and it's clear that Mali-packing Exynos is just no match, even the PowerVR used in the iPad mini 2 and mini 3 doesn't cut it.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  53.1
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  44.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  41.7
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  27.7
• Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
  27.5
• Apple iPad mini 2
  27
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  20.5
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  16.4

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  39.6
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  28.1
• Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
  27.4
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  26.4
• Apple iPad mini 2
  21
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  17.4
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  13.6

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  27.3
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  18.5
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  12
• Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
  11.7
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  8
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  5.6

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  19.8
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  11.7
• Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
  11.3
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  11.2
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  8.5
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  2.9

Basemark X was used to verify the tablet doesn't boost GPU clock speeds while running benchmarks.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  24456
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  18684
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  18297
• Apple iPad mini 2
  13286
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  12911
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  11606
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  6501

The tablet comes with only the Chrome browser, which isn't the fastest on mobile. Other manufacturers typically use customized versions of the stock browser that has been tuned to that particular device, but not Sony.

The Z3 Tablet Compact doesn't do so hot in JavaScript benchmarking (despite its good single-core performance) and only shows an average score in BrowserMark 2.1 (despite the lower resolution).

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  4647
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  4650
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  4927
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  5351
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  5567
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  6500

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3389
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  2208
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (Exynos)
  1681
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  1467
• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  952
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  795

In conclusion, the Snapdragon 801 chipset (the one with a 2.5GHz processor) offers solid performance for apps. Gaming is some of the best a mainstream tablet has to offer (Xiaomi's market share in the west is still narrow). The web browsing performance is somewhat uninspiring but it's still goof enough.