Update July 1: We got a retail Sony Xperia Z3+ unit and updated the scores and text below.
The Sony Xperia Z3+ is powered by none other than the controversial Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset. In theory that should mean a 2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A57 plus 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor which is joined by an Adreno 430 GPU and 3GB of RAM all of which make for a rather typical 2015 high-end setup.
We ran the entire battery of tests we typically do, and a few things became evident. One is that the phone quickly heats up when subjected to a serious load, but that was to be expected given the internals and the slim profile.
That said, it's not as bad as we've witnessed and the phone doesn't get as hot as to be unusable. It's almost full blown summer at headquarters however, so the conditions are as bad as the device would encounter in moderate climates.
The second thing to note, which is a result of the heat, is that benchmark performance drops significantly with consecutive runs. That's not surprising either, but the dip in performance meant that in Antutu, for example, the numbers plummeted from a 55K first run to as low as 46K as the runs ramped up.
The great performance in the first runs proved our initial guess that throttling down due to the heat hinders the phone's performance.
With that preamble, we can now move on to actual scores. First up is the CPU-centric Geekbench test, where the pre-production Xperia Z3+ managed to handily defeat the retail unit.
Higher is better
The same goes for the AnTuTU 5 test where the retail Xperia Z3+ was bottle-necked by its heat issues, scoring a 33k initial result. After a sufficient cool down it managed a much betteer score but one not worthy of the pre-production unit we tested.
Higher is better
Basemark II 2.0 is next in line of the compound benchmarks and the Xperia Z3+ posts a respectable overall score, though the G Flex2 is the highest ranked S810 device here, and it beats the Galaxy S6 too. The retail unit once again lagged behind in score and falls to last place among this elite comoany.
Both the single-core and multi-core results of the Xperia Z3+ are underwhelming and the retail unit was close but once again behind the first device we tested.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Higher is better
Graphics performance puts the Z3+ towards the top of the charts, thanks to the Adreno 430 GPU. Once again we see the pre-production unit notch itself a fictory overthe finalized one.
Higher is better
GFXBench shows almost exact framerates between the two devices we tested. Both are still towards the top of the current crop of high-enders. In the off-screen version (rendered at 1080p for all devices) of the lighter T-Rex routine, the Xperia Z3+ trails behind the S810 HTC One (M9), but not by much. Lesser Snapdragons are all behind. The on-screen test, rendered at the device's actual resolution continues that trend.
Not much changes in the more intense Manhattan test, where the Z3+ is again marginally behind the G Flex2 and One M9.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Higher is better
Higher is better
The one area where the finalized Sony Xperia Z3+ disappointed the most was in browser performance. Results from the JavaScript Kraken 1.1 and HTML 5 BrowserMark dipped tremendously which could be due the use of Google Chrome over Sony's stock browser. The retail Xperia Z3+, like the Xperia Z4 tablet, arrived without the stock browser we used to test the pre-production units.
Lower is better
Higher is better
To sum it up we leave the Sony Xperia Z3+ performance worse than when we found it. The pre-production unit churned out far superior numbers compared to the retail one we received and we can't quite put a finger on the reason. Perhaps Sony has issued some throttling to the CPU in order to reduce heating but we can't be sure.
That's not to say the Sony Xperia Z3+ is a bad performer, on the contrary - we found it to be quite snappy and issues-free in real world operation. It just points to some synthetic-related nicks Sony can easily deal with via software.
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