Review: Sony Tablet S that's outside the league of regular tablets

Sony Tablet S is Sony Corporation’s first tablet and it is perceptibly outside the league of regular tablets with many cutting-edge features. After wide rumors and gossips, Sony wrapped off its much-awaited Android tablets in its IT Mobile Meeting in April 2011. Truly, the Japanese consumer electronics maker was too late to join the ongoing tablet fever. Once it hopped into the highly competitive tablet turf its devices turned out to be hot products.

Sony Tablet S

The company came up with two tablet PCs, the first one is Sony Tablet S, codenamed S1 and the second one is Sony Tablet P, codenamed S2. The former boasts a 9.4-inch display and the latter has two foldable 5.5-inch displays.

What is it

Sony Tablet S is the company’s masterpiece addition to the tablet frenzy. The tech geeks have been much impatient to see a tablet PC from Sony, one of top electronics product makers in the world. When Apple, Samsung, and many other companies rolled out tablets last year, Sony was mostly silent over its production. At last, its tablet has arrived in the racks in the form of Sony Tablet S and Sony Tablet P.

Key features

Folding design: Sony Tablet S, as the company showed off, is up with a folding design. It is mimicking a magazine with its left side is having a thick and rounded edge. Yes, from the left to the right side, the Sony tablet tapers from a thick 0.75-inch down to a narrow 0.3-inch. In short, the device looks like a magazine or book.

High performance: The Sony tablet, as anyone can anticipate, hit the stores with high performing components packed inside. Sony Tablet S is equipped with a 1000 MHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor, 1GB RAM and 16/32GB memory options. The 5000 mAh Li-ion battery promises battery backup of 8:35 hours.

Display: The tablet is up with a 9.4-inch display and a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Of course, the smaller display of Sony Tablet has been counted as a big threat for the leading players like Apple iPad (9.7-inch display) and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (10.1-inch display).

Android Honeycomb: Beyond all hardware advantages, the Sony tablet is running on AndroidHoneycomb, the tablet version of Google Andorid. Honeycomb has wide acceptance as an exclusive tablet operating system.

What’s innovative

The most innovative thing with the Sony tablet is its grand design. Making the difference among a crowd of tablets, Sony has chosen what it calls a folding design for its first tablet. As mentioned above, the device slims down its depth from left the right side. You can grasp the tablet with less effort.

Price and availability

Sony sells the 16GB model of Tablet S for $499 and the $599 for 32GB. It has been available for grabs from mid September in the U.S.

Accessories

Sony tablet is bundled with a proprietary charging adapter and user manual.

The up side

The Sony tablet boasts many exclusive apps for various purposes apart from a typical Androidtablet. Its ergonomic design or folding design has been judged as one of grand features. And, to top it all, the tablet from the entertainment giant is with PlayStation certification, DLNA music and video streaming and many other capabilities.

The down side

Big price is one of downsizes of the Sony tablet. You have to spend around $500 to get this Android Honeycomb tablet. Its charging adapter is proprietary and so it cannot be replaced with an alternative one in case of emergency. Finally, the screen brightness falls short of what is expected by the tech geeks. A Sony product could have a brighter display.

Our experience

Sony Tablet S has been attaining great reviews. Consumers and reviewers have admired Sony’s engineering to manufacture this tablet.

The bottomline

Sony has just hopped into the brewing tablet competition with two awe-inspiring models. Indeed, it is not a time to predict the prospects of an Android tablet from Sony. In fact, Sony has a huge reputation as a traditional manufacturer of laptops, TVs, PlayStation consoles and many other consumer electronics and entertainment gadgets.