Sony Xperia ZR review: Ready to dare

Synthetic benchmarks

The Sony Xperia ZR uses a Snapdragon APQ8064 S4 Pro chipset, the same that powers the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL. It packs four 1.5GHz Krait cores, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 GPU. Just as we expected, it matches the performance of Sony Xperia Z and Xperia ZL almost perfectly.

There are superior chipsets now - the Snapdragon 600 chipset is a fine example, powering the likes of the Galaxy S4 and the Optimus G Pro, and so is the Cortex-A15 (Galaxy S4). But the Xperia ZR SoC is still doing a fine job and we didn't see it chocking with any task we threw at it.

In Benchmark Pi, which is all about single-threaded performance the Xperia ZR posted a great score, beaten only be the newer, higher-clocked Krait 300 processors and the Xperia SP, which also has an advantage in terms of clock speed.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Sony Xperia SP
  184
• Sony Xperia ZR
  264
• Sony Xperia ZL
  264
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Meizu MX 4-core
  362
• Nexus 4
  431
• Sony Xperia L
  435

The Linpack score was pretty great too, the four cores letting the Xperia ZR easily trash the dual-core Xperia SP.

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia ZL
  631
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• Sony Xperia ZR
  627
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Sony Xperia SP
  348
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214
• Nexus 4
  213
• Sony Xperia L
  191
• Meizu MX 4-core
  189
• HTC One X+
  177
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175
• HTC One X
  160
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141

Surprisingly, the AnTuTu score of the Sony Xperia ZR came somewhat short of those of the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL. It's still a pretty solid showing though, even if benchmark geeks probably won't be happy with it.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• Sony Xperia ZL
  20743
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Sony Xperia ZR
  18288
• Sony Xperia SP
  15874
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Sony Xperia L
  9746

Things went back to normal with Quadrant - the Xperia ZR matched the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL and was only left behind by the newer Snapdragon 600 chipsets.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• Sony Xperia ZR
  8073
• Sony Xperia ZL
  7912
• Sony Xperia SP
  7897
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• Nexus 4
  4567
• Sony Xperia L
  4279

Geekbench 2 tests processing power and memory performance. The Sony Xperia ZR didn't have the best of times here, scoring way of the newer Qualcomm chipsets and even being unable to match the Xperia SP score.

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  3227
• LG Optimus G Pro
  3040
• HTC One
  2708
• Sony Xperia Z
  2173
• HTC Butterfly
  2143
• Sony Xperia SP
  2105
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2071
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1995
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• iPhone 5
  1601
• Sony Xperia SL
  1073

We ran GLBenchmark off-screen, which means we're able to test the raw GPU power. There were hardly any surprises here with Xperia ZR scoring as high as the Xperia Z, the Oppo Find 5 and the Nexus 4, and a tad better than the iPhone 5.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4
  43
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  41
• HTC One GPE
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  33
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia ZR
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  15
• HTC One GPE
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZR
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

But most games will probably want to run at native resolution, so we're including Epic Citadel, which uses the Unreal Engine 3. Here, the Xperia ZR took full advantage of its lower-res screen and placed on top, although the difference is negligible - all devices were running against the 60fps screen limits for most of the test anyway.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia ZR
  57.2
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  57.1
• HTC One
  56.4
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  55.8
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• HTC One GPE
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

The Google Chrome web browser is the only one available on the Xperia ZR, so it's what we used for the JavaScript benchmark. The Xperia ZR scored 1310ms, which isn't a spectacular score by any means, but it's not too bad either.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• Sony Xperia SP
  1116
• HTC One
  1124
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1290
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1312
• Sony Xperia ZR
  1310
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Nexus 4
  1971
• Oppo Find 5
  2045
• Sony Xperia L
  2539

BrowserMark 2 is an HTML 5-based benchmark and saw the Sony Xperia ZR with a decent score, but one that is surprisingly a couple of hundred points below the Xperia Z's.

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2438
• Sony Xperia SP
  2263
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• Sony Xperia ZR
  1831
• Sony Xperia L
  1809
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Nokia Lumia 820
  1760
• Samsung Omnia W
  1632
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Vellamo focuses on JavaScript and HTML 5 and is where the Xperia ZR came pretty close to the top.

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia SP
  2497
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2253
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2186
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2060
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• Sony Xperia L
  1640
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1468
• Nexus 4
  1310

To sum things up, the Sony Xperia ZR has plenty of raw processing power at its hands. With the Snapdragon 600 around and the Snapdragon 800 just around the corner, the smartphone stands no chance of being a benchmark champion, but it has more than enough oomph to handle day to day tasks smoothly.