Each of the two models brings its own perks to the table

Feb 11, 2015 10:34 GMT  ·  By

NVIDIA has started sending out invites for an event scheduled to take place on March 3 in San Francisco during which we’re most likely going to see the next-gen Shield Tablet, the first of its kind to arrive with a Tegra X1 chip under the hood.

There aren’t a lot of tablets focused on gaming out there, but NVIDIA seems to continue to believe that this niche is worthy to be exploited.

After all, EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen was heard implying at the 2015 Technology Internet & Media Conference that tablets would soon become more powerful than consoles. However, he probably was a little bit ironical in light of the recent layoffs at EA Mobile in Montreal.

Anyway, for the time being NVIDIA’s current Shield Tablet is among the best gaming-focused slates you can hope to find on the market. Although Sony’s Xperia Z3 Compact represents an interesting offering because it is the only one out there that offers PS4 support.

So while we wait on NVIDIA to launch its newest gaming beast, we are taking an opportunity to compare the two tablets and see which is more capable of providing a better gaming experience, and more.

Design and Display

Both tablets arrive in the wild with a comfortable 8-inch form-factor which allows users to fiddle with the device even if they are using one hand. The two models boast the same 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution and 283 ppi.

Sony’s slate takes advantage of the company’s own TRILUMINOS Display technology thanks to which users get to enjoy a wider palette of rich, natural colors.

As for dimensions, the Shield is 8.8 x 5 x 0.36 inches / 223.5 x 127 x 9.1 mm compared to Sony’s 8.40 x 4.87 x 0.25 inches / 213.4 x 123.6 x 6.4 mm. The NVIDIA model is a little bit heavier (390 g / 13.76 oz) than the Xperia Z3 Compact which weighs only 270 g / 9.52 oz, making it extremely comfortable to hold.

Like most Sony products, the Xperia Z3 Compact is water and dust resistant (IP68 certification), while you’ll have to be careful while handling liquids around the NVIDIA Shield Tablet.

The Xperia Z3 Compact is also weather sealed and protected with extra seals to prevent failures due to any kind of weather.

Performance

Things are quite different under the hoods of these tablets. The Sony Xperia Z3 Compact runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor of a quad-core variety and clocked at 2.5GHz (with Adreno 330 GPU), while the NVIDIA Shield Tablet is one of the first to take advantage of the company’s own quad-core Tegra K1 chip clocked at 2.2GHz.

The Snapdragon inside the Sony tablet comes with an integrated LTE cellular chip, but the NVIDIA slate is also offered in a version with 4G.

The Tegra K1 has been constantly acclaimed of being able to bestow impressive performance on the devices it powers and if we’re to look at synthetic benchmark scores (for example AnTuTu) the Shield Tablet was shown to score 42,997 points.

On the other hand, the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact managed to crunch 42,476 so as you can see the difference isn’t all that huge.

There’s 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage on the Sony model, while the NVIDIA one takes advantage of 2GB of RAM and 32GB instead.

Both devices support memory extension.

Camera

Sony is one of the world’s most prominent photo gear maker, so naturally the Sony tablet is a bit more focused towards photography.

The product bundles an 8.1MP frontal camera with f2.4 aperture size and CMOS sensor plus a 2.2MP frontal selfie shooter. The tablet boasts features like autofocus, touch to focus, digital image stabilization, face detection, smile detection, white balance presets, burst mode, digital zoom, geo tagging, HDR mode, Panorama, scenes, effects and self-timer.

Notably, the NVIDIA Shield Tablet is less impressive in terms of photo, equipping a 5MP shooter up in front with autofocus and HDR mode combined with a 5MP selfie-shooter up in front.

Connectivity

The Sony tablet takes advantage of LTE Cat 4, HSDPA+ (4G), Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, USB 2.0, microUSB, NFC, Miracast, Tethering and Computer Sync.

The NVIDIA Shield Tablet lacks things like NFC and Miracast support, but has LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, mini HDMI (type C), Tethering and Computer Sync.

Operating System

The NVIDIA Shield Tablet is one of the few tablets currently available on the market that has received the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, except the Nexus 9 which originally shipped out with it.

The Sony tablet takes advantage of Android 4.4 KitKat, but Sony has already promised it offer Lollipop treatment to the handset. Currently, Sony’s Xperia Z3 flagship is expecting to be updated, so we are not really sure when Lollipop will be made available on the market.

Gaming Potential

NVIDIA offers a wireless game controller to go with the Shield Tablet, complete with analog joysticks, button, quite akin to current gamepad solutions from Sony (PS3 and PS4) and Microsoft (Xbox).

NVIDIA is also letting users choose from a variety of games especially optimized to run on the Tegra K1 processor via the Shield Hub app.

Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact with gaming controller
Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact with gaming controller

The Shield slate also has ShadowPlay gaming recording technology and Twitch integration that allows users to record and broadcast gameplay to the streaming service.

The Xperia Z3 Tablet doesn’t seem to be so game oriented at first, but that’s before you find out it’s the only one that offers PS4 compatibility.

This means that whenever some member of the family is using the TV, you can pick up your Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact and use it to pair the tablet with the console and to play games on the tab with the DualShock 4 controller (via the Remote Play feat).

Price

Sony is selling its highly portable tablet for around $329 / €256, while NVIDIA offers the Shield Tablet for $299 / €264 for the Wi-Fi version and $399 / €308 for the LTE one.

Sony Xperia Z3 Compact and NVIDIA Shield Tablet (3 Images)

Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact vs NVIDIA Shield Tablet
Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact with gaming controllerNVIDIA Shield Tablet with gaming controller
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