Sir, you are a polypragmatist. Mind your own business
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Sony Tablet S and Tablet P hands-on review
THIS YEAR'S IFA conference in Berlin gave The INQUIRER a chance to get some hands-on time with Sony's upcoming Android tablets, so we put them to the test.
Sony has been mostly quiet about the specifications, and this marks the first time that tablets were up and running in a usable way. First up was the Ipad 2 rival, the Sony Tablet S, with which we were very impressed.
Since the Sony Tablet S runs Android Honeycomb, navigation was very familiar. However, the Apps menu is noticeably different from that of other Android devices (see below), such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but Sony hasn't overdone the customisation, which is good.
The Tablet S looks seriously nice, but we were unsure about the asymmetric design, looking at the tablet from afar. These fears were quickly forgotten when we picked up the tablet.
It was very comfortable to hold and, at 598g, it's one of the lightest tablets on the market, considering that it's a larger sized tablet. We also liked the handy cover for the SD card and microUSB connections.
Some of the unique features include infrared connectivity and the ability to 'throw' content onto other Sony devices. So you can simply swipe a finger up and throw a video onto a connected TV or transfer music to wireless speakers, for example. This worked really well for us and allows Sony to offer a connected entertainment ecosystem.
The Nvidia 1GHz Tegra 2 made general use and tasks like web browsing smooth, comparable to other Tegra 2 tablets like the Motorola Xoom. On the basis of our first impressions, the Tablet S looks like a solid effort from Sony. The only thing holding the tablet back so far appears to be the £499 price tag.
Unfortunately our impressions of the Tablet P were not as delightful. It has specifications similar to those of the Tablet S, but the dual screen was not to our liking. The form factor also felt rather bulky, although it weighs just 372g making it more portable than the Tablet S.
Web browsing was a rather frustrating experience across the two screens, so we think that the Tablet P will function primarily as a handheld gaming device.
The price isn't going to sound attractive either. The Tablet P could come to market at over £500 and, from what we've seen so far, Sony could find it difficult to shift a significant number of units if it doesn't cut the price. µ
Tags: Hardware
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Sony make slick, robust and oh so fashionable hi-tech. The little "wedgy" tablet is proof that the iPad is not the only design possible (yes Samsung et. al., I am looking at you!), and in typical sony style it is:
Stylish
Technically top drawer
Functional
Expensive
People who baulk at the 500 pounds are not the target market, and this product offers something the top tier of the market might actually be interested in.
I hope this is one of many tablets to offer something completely different from all the iPad copycats.
Except that I don't like Android very much and cannot be bothered spending 3 years of my life customising a device, I might even consider the Sony slab.
Dweeb
I thought that you could only produce a tablet , that looked like an iPad ?? quick someone tell samsung!
Odd idea some of these fandroids have. HP have pretty convincingly demonstrated that to compete with an iPad an Android/3rd party tab has to be cheaper and/or offer significantly more. Sony seem to have missed that one.
NO MATTER HOW YOU FRIGGIN SLICE IT.
Once you realize that there won't be an Apple tax. That's the key difference no one seems to be noticing, that the people who are selling the tablets are, for the most part, only making money off the initial sale. Apple continues making money, hand over fist, long after the sale is completed. Therefore their tablet is way more expensive long-term.