Sony Tablet S

Why would you pick up Sony's Tablet S instead of the iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? On the whole, the Tablet is a very consumer-friendly device. You'd get it because you like how different it looks and how comfortable it feels in your hands. Plus, it also comes with a full-size SD card slot built in so you won't need any adaptors to transfer data.

The universal remote control which is unique to the Sony Tablet S is another factor you should consider if you are in the market for an Android Tablet.

Read original review at Mobile88.

With the Tablet S, Sony provides a fine example for other Android tablet makers to follow. The Tablet S has a very different, but still innovative design from the iPad and other thin, large-screen tablets, and it has some great proprietary features and services not available for other tablets, like the PlayStation integration. Here’s hoping Sony adds more games in the very near future, though. Praise aside, our Tablet S review unit crashed more than it should have, but we hold out hope the inevitable ICS update will resolve that. Too bad ICS won’t do much to brighten up the display, because the picture quality is excellent otherwise. Also, what seems like is now the usual laundry list of Android tablet gripes applies to the Tablet S, including the proprietary charging input, lousy speakers and plastic build.

Read original review at TabletPCReview.

The retail box packs in a tablet, charger, a wrist strap, and a warranty card. The device measures 9.5" (l) x 6.7" (w) x 0.8" (d) and weighs around 600 grammes. The tab features a unique magazine fold-out design that props the screen at an angle when placed on a table. At the front is a 9.4" screen surrounded by a black bezel and a front facing VGA camera. The design is refreshingly new and the tablet is quite light to carry.

The 9.4" LED-backlit touchscreen has pixel dimensions of 1280x800. The screen offers good viewing angles and brightness. The inbuilt speakers offer decent sound quality, but they could have been better. You can customise the five homescreens with widgets and shortcuts. If you have multimedia content stored on your SD Card, you will have to import into the internal storage before playing, which is a bit of a dampner. Overall, the crisp screen works like a charm.

The Tablet S runs Honeycomb, and is PlayStation Certified, which means that you have access to Crash Bandicoot, which is currently the only PlayStation game on offer in India. Considering that the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY smartphone has been around for a while, you would expect more titles. The PlayStation style controls are touch sensitive and take some time getting a hang of, especially for new users. Other preloaded games include NinJump, Angry Birds, RacingMoto, and the PSP game Pinball Heroes. There is also the GameLoft app that lets you download HD Games.

The built in music player is impressive, and features a built-in equalizer that could do with a few more presets.

The 5000 mAh battery's performance is disappointing. A couple of hours of gaming and the battery drains down to almost 50%. For moderate use, the battery would last up to 7 hours. The tablet is feature-rich, but it doesn't justify its expensive price tag.

Read original review at TechTree.