[Galaxy Tab S General] echoboomer:
I have to decide between these two tables and I’m struggling. Sometimes it helps to verbalize my thoughts so I’m making a post. My goal is to hear your opinions and share my views on these two tablets, which are both great devices in different ways. I bought the Tab S 8.4 two weeks ago and received the Z3 tablet last week. I’ve had some time to play with both and I’ve come up with my personal list of pros and cons.

Tab S 8.4 (T700)

Pros:

Price - $360CAD = $400CAD taxes in

Display – higher res and OLED saturation, also slightly larger

Dev Community is active

Appearance – I really like the titanium/bronze color combo, it looks like a professional device

Cons:

Battery Life – Typical use I was getting ~5hrs of SOT with mixed gaming/clashing/browsing [Improvable w/ root]

Touchwiz bloat [Fixable’ish w/ root]

Performance – I’m listing this on-top of the Touchwiz lag because I’m not convinced the processor is enough to push the pixels under high demand. I was playing Hearthstone and the loading times were noticeably longer than on the Z3.

Physical buttons – After years of using android devices with on-screen buttons it’s hard for me to revert to using the hardware button on the Samsung. Even more confusing switching to landscape mode and having to use the hardware button on the right. [Fixable w/ root]

Neutral:

IR Blaster is nice to have

Fingerprint reader is nice, but I found it very finnnicky. Plus I will generally not lock this device because it’s being used at home 90% of the time.

Z3 Compact Tablet (SGP612)

Pros:

Battery Life – consistently getting 8+hrs of SOT with the same usage

Handling – the lighter weight and slightly smaller size make the tablet easier to handle

Software – Sony’s android software is close to stock and runs fast. Plus their built-in features (ex. Stamina mode, doubletap to wake) work very well

Remoteplay – PS4 controller / console connectivity is cool.

Design – nice industrial design overall, solid build quality.

Cons:

Price - $520CAD = $600CAD all-in. This tablet is 50% more expensive (inc. 32gb on-board vs 16gb on the Samsung) in my case.

Developer community – very small XDA community for this device right now.

Color – only the white version is sold in Canada and I’m not keen on all-white devices. The Tab S is much more appealing IMO.

Neutral:

Waterproof – I have no interest in testing this.

Display – smaller and lower res, but still a very good screen. Not a deciding factor IMO.

Integration w/ Sony Phones – I saw one review saying this was awesome but I don’t see much value. You can set the tablet up so it connects to your xperia phone using NFC and then you can use the phones mobile signal for data and also get calls/texts routed to the tablet. I won’t get much value out of this feature. Plus, I couldn’t get the NFC handshake to work (Z3TC on 4.4 stock, Z3C on 5.0 rooted).

tl;dr: I think I’ll return the Sony and stick with the Tab S. Price is the main deciding factor. I also think the Tab S is more visually appealing which is important to me. Rooting & customizing the Tab S should fix a lot of what I dislike about it and I like the active community here. I wish I could justify the price of the Z3 but the incremental performance and battery life just aren’t compelling enough. My typical use-case is playing games/browsing on the couch or hotel room. The Tab S is capable enough to play the games I want (Hearthstone, Clash of Clans) and the battery life is enough to last an evening at home or a domestic flight. I've realized that battery longevity on a tablet is way less important to me than on a phone.