Sony Xperia Tablet S Review

Sony is not a very big player in the Android tablet market, although the only other tablet it has ever released, the Tablet S, has been quite successful. Sony's new Xperia Tablet S, however, might bring Sony's reputation in the tablet space neck to neck with maybe even today's tablet king, ASUS. With a state-of-art NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, slim and light form factor, splash-resistant body, and with an integrated IR emitter for use of the Xperia Tablet as a TV remote control, this tablet packs a punch. It will be shipping with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but common sense tells me that a 4.1 Jelly Bean update must be in the works.

	Sony Xperia Tablet S	ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity	Apple iPad 3
Connectivity	Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi + 3G/4G LTE	Wi-Fi + 3G/4G LTE
Body	570g, 8.9mm - 11.9mm thickness	598g, 8.5mm thickness	652g, 9.4mm thickness
Display	9.4" TFT LCD 1280 x 800	10.1" Super IPS+ Full HD (1920x1200) w/Corning Gorilla Glass 2	9.7" IPS TFT Retina Display (2048x1536)
Storage	16/32/64 GB + SD card slot (up to 32GB)	32/64 GB + MicroSD card slot (up to 32GB)	16/32/64 GB
RAM	1GB, single-channel DDR3-1600	1GB, single-channel DDR3L-1333 for Wi-Fi only. 1GB, dual-channel LPDDR2-500 for 3G/4G version	1GB, quad-channel LPDDR2-1066
Camera (rear)	8MP w/touch focus, image stabilization and face/smile detection, 1080p @ 30fps video	8MP w/LED flash, autofocus, 1080p video	5MP w/autofocus, face detection, 1080p @ 30fps video and video stabilization
Camera (front)	1MP, 720p video	2MP	VGA, 480p @ 30fps video
OS	Android 4.0 ICS	Android 4.0 ICS (4.1 JB update coming soon)	iOS 5.1
Chipset	NVIDIA Tegra 3 T30L (Quad Cortex-A9 @ 1.3GHz + 12-core GeForce @ 419MHz)	Wi-Fi version: NVIDIA Tegra 3 T33 (Quad Cortex-A9 @ 1.6GHz + 12-core GeForce @ 520MHz) 3G/4G version: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 (Dual-core Krait @ 1.5GHz + Adreno 225)	Apple A5X (Dual-core Cortex-A9 @ 1.0GHz + PowerVR SGX543MP4 (quad-core GPU) @ 250MHz)
Price	$399 - $599	$499 - $599	$499 - $829

Pros

One of the ways in which the Xperia Tablet distinguishes itself is in its unusual shape. The body is thinner at the bottom of the device and is thicker at the top, making the back casing slightly tilted in relation to the screen. This provides a good position of the tablet when it is placed in a flat surface, enabling ergonomic typing. The Xperia Tablet is also very light, just slightly lighter than the ASUS Transformer Prime. Another nifty feature of the Xperia Tablet is that is has an integrated IR emitter, and can therefore be used as a Universal Remote Control. Personally, I think that the Xperia Tablet's design is very good. I quite like the squared corners and wide bezel. The cameras in the Xperia Tablet are very good indeed, and quite unusually, both the rear and front cameras are good, but unfortunately there's no LED flash coupled with the rear camera.

Cons

 

Display's pixel density is not bad, at 160 pixels per inch, but it's definitely not enough to compete with Full HD tablets, which at 10.1" screen size offer 224 pixels per inch. Sadly, this tablet only comes in a Wi-Fi only version. Also, I think that the display quality will be rather bad, following Sony's unusual choice of using a TFT display instead of an IPS screen. In relation to IPS, TFT screens tend to have rather poor color reproduction and bad viewing angles. Apparently the Xperia Tablet also has no scratch-resistant glass, making it less durable. Also, despite its processor being the king of the hill, the Tegra 3, it is unfortunately the weakest version of Tegra 3 available. The Tegra 3 T30L in the Xperia Tablet has a slightly weaker GPU, however, the memory controller is actually not bad.

Conclusion

I'd say that I was rather disappointed with the Xperia Tablet S, considering how good Sony usually is with its devices. It is basically a mid-end tablet with the price of a mid-to-high end tablet. It is in many ways worse than the ASUS Transformer Pad 300, yet more expensive. It doesn't have many good features, has only fair performance, which leaves design as the only win this tablet has. Sony should've used a better screen, because that's the worst feature of this tablet, and Sony should've also included a 3G or even a 4G variant of the tablet. I believe that the Xperia Tablet won't sell much mainly because other tablets offer more for a lower price. .