Display and sound
We hope that you enjoy looking at your own
reflection since that is the feeling when using the Tablet S. In spite of the
OptiContrast technique applied to reduce glare to a minimum and the screen that
can be seen in sunlight, it does not do anything other than that. Indoors and
out, the tablet reflects even the smallest signal of ambient light, which makes
it difficult to take advantage of that 9.4 inch screen. Oh, you'll still
probably read the screen in direct sunlight to some extent with the maximum
brightness, but even so you also have to adjust its angle.
You’ll
still probably read the screen in direct sunlight to some extent with the
maximum brightness, but even so you also have to adjust its angle.
Complicating the issue more is the low-
friction coating that the company has applied to the screen. In terms of
theory, it will feel good under your fingers, but mostly, it feels slippery. We
had to struggle with one software keyboard for typing, but if you add a slick
screen, you will have a lot of errors easily.
The Xperia Tablet S has a 9.4-inch IPS
display (1280x800) offering colors and contrast often associated with that
solution. Overall, this expresses through the images, icons and text that seem
to be vivid with the balanced color tones that appear a bit pale. However, the
tablet was able to certainly benefit from the saturation thanks to the Super
AMOLED screens; giving it more power to get over the glare to read better.
However, if you are trying to use this to watch HD content, you will not
complain too much, because it handles 720p video easily. The sound is not the
most powerful - easy to see small sound - and the dual speaker position is
located right at the bottom of the tablet means that much of that sound is
misdirected. At maximum volume, it is not too loud, which would perform well in
quite a quiet room, but not so well in the public environment.
We
had to struggle with one software keyboard for typing.
Software
When Sony pulled the curtain on the Tablet
S Xperia down at IFA, it broke the point of view that the Xperia brand would
bring up to much more of the unified user experience. After all, the market is
currently filled with abounding similar Android tablets, so if the Tablet S
wants to succeed, it needs to be different. How does it do that? Well, first of
all, the main home screen is almost entirely occupied by two lines of
Sony-branded "applications". We are quoting it since such an
applications, Sony Select, is really just a web shortcut leading to a secondary
"app store", which turns out to be re-navigating to Google Play.
Apart from that small error, when opening
the device, you will immediately be greeted by the content ecosystem of the
company: Music Unlimited, Video Unlimited, Play Memories Online, Reader by
Sony, Walkman and Socialife. Whether you choose to use this application suit
instead of the more prestigious products of Google or Amazon is just a matter
of personal choice. But we are unlikely to see many users who abandon their
accounts and libraries available for a selection of other third- party.
Those who love pure Google, hunting for the
tablets with the smooth performance of Jelly Bean will want to avoid buying
this, or can get the Nexus 7. That is due to the fact that the Xperia Tablet S
comes with a custom layer on the Android 4.0.3. Although Sony does not like to
call its UX the "skin", but there is really another name for it - the
customizations are pretty clear. For example, the home screens are currently
bordered by the company's toolbars, which provide quick access shortcuts for
the browser, camera, mail and application settings menu, along with a Google
search box up top, an icon for Guest Mode, and shortcuts for Sony’s preset TV
Remote application.
These changes, combined with the pre-loaded
Sony applications and widgets bring up the S a cluttered look and feel. There
is stuff very cramped on the user experience that makes us uncomfortable. It's
crowded at the place where it should not be. But with the slim possibility that
you are not afraid of these software customizations or even find them useful
and are ready for a promise of Android 4.1 update, then you should spend the
money on Sony. (Sony did not give an ETA for its JB update. This is reasonable;
updating that UI was able to take time).
When
opening the device, you will immediately be greeted by the content ecosystem of
the company: Music Unlimited, Video Unlimited, Play Memories Online, Reader by
Sony, Walkman and Socialife.
If you have kids or frequent visitors who
like to fiddle with your technology toys, you will be pleased that Sony
included Guest Mode on the S. Basically it is a kind of parental control for
your tablet. The Setup is rather simple: after creating a profile that is
specific for the user, you can choose which applications you want to allow
access and even a password so you are able to escape from this protected mode
and back to full software experience. Users working within these walled
environments will not have many abilities to customize the tablet in addition
to setting up shortcuts or changing the wallpaper.
To keep the family theme, Sony’s built-in
TV Remote Control application will allow you to control your flat- screen TV
while you normally browse the web from the sofa. This is pretty easy to do,
although you will need to read over a variety of menus before you are reminded
to select the appropriate TV manufacturer from a drop-down list that seems to
be endless. In addition to the lack of any compatibility, you'll have full
remote functionality in less than two minutes – that is about the time period that
took us to start turning on/off volume control on our office TV. There is even
the option to customize the button layout and set macro for functions such as
opening the TV or cable box. All in all, it is a good addition to the S, but
not really enough to be a killer feature to help this Android tablet to be more
prominent than rivals.
We have already talked about floating
software that Sony cramped into the Tablet S Xperia, but to tell you the full
data, the software load consists of 27 pre-set applications, including
AccuWeather, Evernote, OfficeSuite, Hulu Plus and Zinio, along with other
applications. Obviously, you will be likely to uninstall some of these
third-party applications, but you will be unable to uninstall the own
applications of Sony.
