Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet vs Samsung Galaxy NotePRO 12.2

Introduction

A thin elegant tablet, or a large powerhouse? A lot of users will be facing this dilemma after Samsung introduced its 12” slates, that's why we decided to pit those two categories against each other. Get ready to rumble, as it's the thinnest, lightest 10” Android slate out there – Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet – versus the functional, but monstrous 12” Galaxy NotePRO. The Z2 Tablet is waterproof, while the NotePRO sports a pressure-sensitive S Pen stylus. Which one will prevail? Let's find out...

Design

NotePRO is as light and compact as a 12-incher can get, which is still not much, especially compared to the thinnest, lightest 10” tablet out there

The Xperia Z2 Tablet is incredibly thin at 0.25” (6.4mm), and also the lightest 10” tablet out there. Thanks to the light chassis and the relatively thick side bezels, it's easy to hold with one hand even, something that we don't encounter every day with 10-inchers. It's waterproof, too, with IP58 certification, meaning that you can dip it up to five feet of water for more than an hour. Its only design downsides are the soft-touch back that smudges easily, and the tiny side keys that have a tendency to wobble. Sony's tablet is exactly what a modern slate should be, if you want to find justification for it to replace your laptop, at least on the digital consumption side of it.

The NotePRO, on the other hand, has a faux leather back that feels more slippery. Samsung's slate is not bad in terms of thickness, at 0.31” (7.95mm), but its 12” status returns 26.56 oz (753 g) of weight. As for holding it with one hand – you can, but the weight and the thinner side bezels are rather prohibitive to do it comfortably. With this heft, it closes in on some compact ultrabooks that run full-fledged Windows, and here we have an Android tablet. Samsung equipped the NotePRO with its pressure-sensitive S Pen stylus, which adds an extra input method towards the large display canvas.

Displays

Color saturation is the name of the game with those displays, but they are very pleasant to look at. NotePRO kills it in the brightness department, while the Z2 Tablet screen is too reflective.

The Z2 Tablet falls short of the NotePRO when it comes to pure resolution, as it sports a 10.1” 1920x1200 pixels LCD display, while Samsung's 12” slate flaunts 2560x1600 pixels Super Clear LCD panel. The NotePRO's display, however, uses a different matrix, called Diamond Pixels, which effectively lowers the subpixel count; its alternative arrangement is quite visible on the large display, especially with solid colors. Since we have a much smaller display on the Z2 Tablet, its 224ppi pixel density isn't far from the 247ppi of the NotePRO, so in terms of pixels per inch count the tablets are on par.

Sony uses its new Color LED tech for the Triluminos screen of the Z2 Tablet, which exhibits flashy and appealing, but not too oversaturated colors, that are very pleasant to look at. Samsung's panel also appears somewhat oversaturated. The white balance of the Z2 Tablet is spot on, while the NotePRO flies towards the cold side of the spectrum with 7196 Kelvins vs 6664K on the Sony.

When it comes to peak brightness levels, the NotePRO musters the much higher 627 nits, which is an amazing feat for a tablet. Compare that to the 417 nits of the Z2 slate, plus its annoyingly high reflectivity ratio, and the NotePRO immediately becomes the better display to use outdoors in sunlight.
The viewing angles on both tablet are very good, with barely a shift in display characteristics even at more extreme angles.

Interface

Samsung's tablet-tailored Magazine UX with its split-screen modes trumps the basic Xperia UI of the Z2 Tablet.

Samsung's new Magazine UX is specifically tailored towards tablet usage, with large resizable panels that can host plenty of diverse social media, news, apps and scheduling content. It's a different, more structured take on Android's widget system that is more uniform to look at. Couple this with the amazing multitasking modes that Samsung offers, like the Multi Window mode that can split the screen in four independent sections for each app running, and Sony's Xperia UI pales in comparison. It only offers a set of Small Apps that can hover in separate windows above whatever else you are doing underneath. You can open up to five of them, but Samsung immediately counters that with its Pop-up View mode, which lets you open up to five apps in such “floating” windows, too. The NotePRO also has another huge advantage in terms of multitasking and productivity, and it is the S Pen stylus, tucked at the top right. It is an alternative input method that is more precise than your fingertip, and lets you preview links or folder content before you've even touched the display.

Processor and memory

Graced with the latest Snapdragon 801, the Z2 Tablet feels superior in the graphics department, but both tablets run very smooth in general usage.

The fight here is between the Snapdragon 801 on the Z2 Tablet, and the 800 on the NotePRO. Both are quad-core and clocked at 2.3 GHz maximums, so the overall processing power is only slightly in favor of the Sony slate. When it comes to graphics, however, the benchmark gap becomes much larger, as the Adreno 330 GPU in the new Snapdragon 801 is clocked a third higher than in 800, with the respective boost in productivity. The GPU in the NotePRO has to push more pixels with a slower clock, but in reality the performance on both tablets seems on par, and we even encountered a hiccup or two on Sony's slate, unlike the smooth sailing on the NotePRO.

Both tablets boast 3 GB of RAM, but the internal storage differs, as Samsung starts you off with 32 or 64 GB, while Sony's device begins at 16 GB. The tablets offer microSD card slots for storage expansion, too.

Internet and connectivity

We can't say a bad word about the browsers on these powerful slates when it comes to the fluidity of scrolling, panning or zooming. Samsung's default browser offers Adobe Flash support, though you have to sideload it, while Sony sticks with Android's Chrome that doesn't offer this feature. Browsing on the 12” screen of the NotePRO is more pleasant not only on account of the larger canvas, but also since you can use the S Pen stylus to preview links and photos, as well as clip and share content quickly.



Both tablets have 3G/LTE-equipped models, and share Wi-Fi/ac connectivity, plus Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS and DLNA. There is an infrared port at the top of the slates, letting you command home electronics with it. The IR blasters are both managed by dedicated apps, but Samsung offers a much wider scope of gear to manage, including AC units.

Camera

Very good tablet cameras that slightly oversaturate the photos to make them more appealing for the general public.

The tablets are equipped with 8 MP cameras, and NotePRO even throws in an LED flash, in case you want to, you know, carry it around at the Thanksgiving dinner. Both offer plenty of scene options and color effects, including Panorama and HDR modes. Sony's tablet is extremely fast to focus and take a picture, and the Superior Auto mode has become very precise at guessing the scene in front. NotePRO features minimum shutter lag, too, but is a bit slower to focus.



The photos from both tablets come out nice, with amount of detail akin to their 8 MP resolution. The slates oversaturate the colors a bit, so that they look more pleasing than the actual scene, but don't overdo it to the point of yuckiness. When you shoot contrasting scenes with them, like against a sky background, we'd recommend to use the Rich Tone (HDR) modes, as otherwise the pictures come out underexposed on both.



The slates record 1080p video with fluid 30fps, which looks more appealing from the Z2 Tablet, which oversaturates the scene a tad more, and has very good sound recording.

Multimedia

Sony's Walkman-branded music player coupled with the four S-Force Surround speakers make for one of the best sound outputs we've heard on a tablet.

Sony's Xperia UI uses the Albums gallery app, which offers picture editing options from within the app itself, and so does Samsung with its own Gallery. The NotePRO has the stylus advantage, though, making it much easier to crop, draw and annotate your pictures. Samsung also offers an easy split-view gallery interface, that lists the folders on the left, and their content on the right for easier navigation.



When it comes to music players, the Walkman-branded one on the Z2 Tablet is much more appealing in terms of design, with its stylishly categorized layout. Samsung's music player is very functional, with plenty of sound modes and equalizers, too, but its interface is rather basic, and already looks aging. Sony's four S-Force surround speakers are situated in two-by-two placement at the bottom of the tablet, and produce one of the cleanest, fullest tablet sound output we've heard. The NotePRO has two strong stereo speakers, which, however, don't sound as clear, despite that Sony had to keep its speakers waterproof, and to stuff them into a thinner slate.



The Z2 Tablet is graced with an excellent video player that plays anything thrown at it at 1080p resolutions even. You can play MKV and Xvid videos in up to 1080p resolution with the NotePRO's stock player, but not DivX ones, which can be easily remedied with a 3rd party player. The bright and large 12” screen on the NotePRO, however, is great for watching movies, and in that regard it trumps the smaller, less luminant display of the Z2 Tablet.

Battery

NotePRO is the absolute endurance king of all mobile devices, while the Z2 Tablet performs akin to the average Android slate.

The 6000 mAh battery in the Z2 Tablet might sound small for a 10” slate, but the device lasted just shy of the 7-hour mark in our battery test, which is a pretty good result. The NotePRO, however, with its gigantic 9500 mAh unit is the absolute champion of all devices we've tested so far, pushing very close to the 9-hour mark even, so if you are looking for the utmost tablet endurance, this is it.

Conclusion

With the 12” NotePRO, Samsung created a niche productivity-oriented pad, while Sony's slate is exactly what a media and web consumption device should be – an extremely thin and light tablet, with the waterproof certification added for extra measure.

Both tablets feature high resolution displays and fast processors, but after you've lugged around the NotePRO, you'd think twice whether to pay its significant price premium - $700 vs $500 – over the Z2 Tablet. It offers more productivity options than the Sony tablet, thanks to features like the Multi Window mode, and the S Pen stylus, plus a much longer battery life.

The minute you grab the thinnest, lightest 10” tablet out there, however, most other slates in the Android world starts to pale, including a certain huge and expensive 12-incher.