Hands On: Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet and Bluetooth Keyboard BKB50

Even though Sony Malaysia didn’t mention it outright through the media invite to the launch event that will take place later today, we are quite confident that one of the devices that was featured on the teaser on its official website is the brand new Xperia Z4 Tablet. After all, Sony Malaysia has confirmed that the two devices that were shown on the teaser as Xperia C and Xperia M4 Aqua.

So, what is the tablet all about then? Well, read on further to learn more.

One of the first thing that we immediately noticed about the Xperia Z4 Tablet is its slim physique. With a thickness that measures at only 6.1 mm, it is not surprising that the tablet is pretty light as well – at less than 400 grams. Predominantly made of polycarbonate, the Z4 Tablet has Ingress Protection rating of IP65 and IP68 which means that it is dustproof as well as waterproof at depth of less than 1.5 meters for under 30 minutes as long as all of its flaps are properly closed.

Being a flagship tablet, the Z4 Tablet is certainly equipped with numerous high-end hardware. One of them is its 10.1-inch Triluminous IPS display with a native resolution of 2560 x 1600. Not only that it has sharp and vivid output, the display is also quite bright and complemented further with good viewing angle.

In terms of processing power, the Z4 Tablet is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core 64-bit processor which features four Cortex-A57 cores and four low power Cortex-A53 cores. These cores run at a maximum speed of 2 GHz and 1.5 GHz respectively. The graphical workload on the tablet is also handled by the same processor through its Adreno 430 GPU.

Alongside the processor, Sony has also equipped the tablet with 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. Users are free to expand the tablet’s storage through the tablet’s microSD slot which supports card with storage of up to 128GB.

For photography, the Z4 Tablet depends on its 8.1-megapixels Exmor RS auto focus rear camera which unfortunately doesn’t come with a flash for those who prefer to have it. There is also another camera on the front of the tablet which comes with a 5-megapixels sensor. To round up the list, Z4 Tablet’s power source comes in the form of a 6,000 mAh battery that allows the tablet to have up to 17 hours of video playback according to Sony.

Naturally, Sony has designed several accessories for the benefit of the tablet but the Bluetooth Keyboard BKB50 is certainly the one that stands up the most. The company stated that the optional keyboard is designed to provide laptop-like experience to the Z4 Tablet and from our brief experience with it, seems like Sony is not far off from its claim.

When the BKB50 is connected to the Z4 Tablet, an application launcher that similar in nature to the pinned program on Windows taskbar will appear next to the tablet’s on-screen navigational keys. Built with its own touchpad and a set of dedicated navigational keys that are identical to those on-screen keys, the BKB50 also comes with an app that provide fast access to recently opened app and keyboard settings as well as its battery status.

Not to forget, it also acts as a stand and cover for the tablet. In term of battery life, Sony claimed that BKB50’s 400 mAh battery is able to last up to 1.5 months with daily usages of 8 hours. In certain markets, the keyboard is bundled with the tablet which we hope will be the same case for our market as well since the keyboard is quite useful for users out there although the keys might be quite small for some.

As far as our first impressions are concerned, we are generally impressed with the tablet. Its light and slim physique combined with quality display and high performance hardware certainly suit its status as Sony’s new flagship tablet. Of course, pricing will play an important role but that is something that we will only know in few hours’ time through Sony Malaysia’s Xperia launch event later today.

Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet