Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet review: the thin tablet that's also an Android laptop

Lighter than an iPad, waterproof and with an excellent keyboard accessory, the Xperia Z4 Tablet is Sony’s best yet

Sony’s Xperia Z4 Tablet is the Japanese firm’s best yet, with small bezels, a bright screen and a waterproof body – but it’s when you add a full keyboard that things start to get interesting.

Sony has a solid heritage in tablets with two excellent entries into the Z series before now. While they have failed to sell particularly well, they have been some of the best Android tablets available. In fact, they have only been let down by the poor amount of tablet-optimised software for Android. That app gap between Android tablets and Apple’s iPad no longer exists.

The Xperia Z4 Tablet will be familiar to anyone who has laid eyes on a Sony smartphone or tablet made in the last couple of years: a thin, waterproof body, black bezels and a brilliant LCD screen.

The big change for the Z4 is the size of the housing. The screen is the same 10.1in, now quad HD with a pixel density of 299 pixels per inch, but the bezels around the screen have shrunk – the tablet is 12mm shorter and 5mm narrower, making it one of the smallest 10in tablets available.

The body is thin with a thickness of 6.1mm, light at 393g, and discrete with hard-wearing black plastic back, and nylon corners that are meant to absorb the energy and stop the screen shattering if the tablet is dropped. It’s an understated design and the thinnest and lightest large tablet yet.

The 2K screen is great: it’s pin-sharp, very bright and with very wide viewing angles. It’s not quite as fantastic as Samsung’s OLED screen on the Galaxy Tab S but is in line with the subtle colours of LCD screens such as Apple’s iPad Air 2.

The screen is not covered by Gorilla Glass – the scratch-resistant glass used in most smartphones and tablets – but instead with Sony’s own scratch-resistant glass. In the past Sony’s own glass has proved to not be as scratch resistant as rivals. A screen protector might be a wise purchase.