Sony xperia tablet s. Sony Xperia Tablet S - Specifications. Bluetooth is a standard for secure wireless data transfer between different types of devices over short distances.

Sony's first tablet, the Tablet S, came out in September. More precisely, at the end of September, a version of the Tablet S without 3G appeared on the shelves. The 3G version came out later - in December 2011. And today it remains quite an attractive option for those buyers who are not chasing the most relevant technical innovations, but prefer an interesting design and a sonorous brand.

Design finds do not end there. It is also worth noting the unusual "pimple" coating of the rear "wrapped" surface.

Apparently, the designers here did not so much achieve unusual tactile sensations as they tried to avoid slipping the tablet in case of fogging of the palm of the speaker, who holds the tablet with one hand during the presentation.

Let's look at the location of the buttons and connectors. All connectors are located on the left side (although it is not entirely correct to call it a side: this is a rather large non-monolithic area).

In addition to the 3.5 mm headphone jack, these are slots for an SD card and a SIM card (the latter is only available in the 3G version, of course), as well as Micro-USB for connecting to a computer. Please note that the Tablet S uses SD, not microSD (it would seem that it has already become the de facto standard in tablets).

The buttons are located on the right side of the Tablet S. There are no surprises here: Power, volume up and down. Well, the reset hole for emergencies.

To recharge the device, a very unusual (and, I confess, inconvenient to use) Dock connector is used. It is on the bottom (narrow) edge of the device.

There are no buttons or connectors on the top. There is only a rounded surface made of the same material and the same texture as the back side (black pimply plastic).

In general, the design can be called ... unusual. It is very difficult to evaluate - both from a visual and functional point of view. Probably, the lack of Mini- or Micro-HDMI can be considered a disadvantage (there would be a place for it here), as well as an inconvenient Dock connector (it takes a very long time to get used to how to connect a charger to it). SD instead of microSD - everyone decides for himself, plus or minus. As for the appearance - here, too, it is impossible to make an unambiguous assessment. Therefore, we recommend that before buying, be sure to twist it in your hands and understand whether you personally like it or not. But as an absolute plus, we note that it stands out from the gray mass of iPad analogues. The Sony Tablet S has its own face and style, and whether they are cute or not is a matter of personal taste.

Screen

A curious feature of the screen is its size: the diagonal is 9.4 inches. Atypical solution: the standard is 10.1 inches (ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Acer Iconia Tab A500, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, etc.) or 9.7 inches (Apple iPad, HP TouchPad). At the same time, the resolution of Sony Tablet S corresponds to 10-inch tablets. Consequently, the dpi density of the Tablet S is slightly higher.

A detailed examination of the screen using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the "Monitors" and "Projectors and TV" sections Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his conclusion.

The front surface of the tablet is covered with a transparent plastic plate (resistant to scratches) with a mirror-smooth surface. There is no anti-glare filter, judging by the reflection of bright light sources. There is no special oleophobic coating on the outer surface of the screen, so fingerprints appear easily and are difficult to remove, but still the first is a little more difficult and the second is a little easier than in the case of glass surfaces without an oleophobic coating.

With manual brightness control, its maximum value was 328 cd / m², the minimum - 8.2 cd / m². As a result, at maximum brightness in bright daylight, you can see something on the screen, and the minimum brightness will allow you to comfortably use the tablet even in complete darkness. Automatic brightness control works in the same strange way as in the case of the Sony Tablet P tablet - in the "Auto" mode in bright light, the brightness rises to the maximum value, and in complete darkness it remains at the minimum level (which is too low). But the brightness can only increase - with a decrease in the level of ambient light, we did not wait for a corresponding decrease in the brightness of the screen. However, if you put the tablet into sleep mode and turn it on again, the brightness will be set according to the ambient light level. The light sensor is located to the right of the front camera. Brightness adjustment is carried out using pulse-width modulation with a high frequency - 209 Hz, so the flickering of the backlight at low brightness is not visible.

This tablet uses an IPS type matrix, so the screen has very good viewing angles without inverting shades and without significant color shift even at large deviations of the gaze from the perpendicular to the screen. True, which is typical for any IPS-matrix, the black field when deviated diagonally is significantly brightened (but remains close to neutral gray). When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field, with the exception of a couple of local areas at the edge of the screen, is good. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 30 ms (16 ms on + 14 ms off). The transition between halftones 25% and 75% (according to the numerical value of the color) takes a total of 46 ms. For the gamma curve constructed from 32 points, the exponent of the approximating power function turned out to be 2.08, which is slightly lower than the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve is in good agreement with the power dependence.

The contrast ratio is quite high - 820:1. The color gamut is noticeably narrower than sRGB:

The spectra are typical for LED backlighting:

Apparently, the matrix filters slightly mix the components to each other. This technique allows you to increase the brightness of the screen with the same energy consumption for backlighting. The color temperature balance is good - shades of gray have a color temperature of about 6000 K - but the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (delta E) is large (about 12) due to the excess green component. It also contributes to an increase in brightness at the expense of some deterioration in color reproduction.

However, color temperature and delta E remain virtually unchanged over the entire gray scale area of ​​interest, so visually the color balance is very good. In general, the screen is not bad, but nothing special stands out. Screens similar in characteristics can be found in other tablets.

The tablet supports multiple touches (multitouch), 10 touches are recognized simultaneously.

The exact dimensions of the usable screen area (according to our measurements): diagonal 23.9 cm (9.4 inches), wide side - 20.2 cm, narrow side - 12.6 cm.

Platform

The tablet is running NVIDIA Tegra 2 - a standard solution for 2011, but today it is no longer so relevant. The amount of RAM is 1 GB. It is clear that the performance of the Sony Tablet S does not promise us big surprises (neither good nor bad), but nevertheless we carried out a basic set of tests.

In the Quadrant Standard, the tablet still showed an insufficiently high result: 1785 points.

The Sony Tablet S's SunSpider 0.9.1 browser benchmark passed in 2227.1ms, which is quite normal.

Note: the table shows the best results that the tablets showed

The Sony Tablet S performed well in the Vellamo benchmark, also focused on web content. With a score of 1021, the tablet outperformed the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the first ASUS Eee Pad Transformer.

In the Nenamark2 test, which measures the performance of the graphics subsystem, the tablet showed a result at the level of other tablets with Tegra 2 - 22.1 fps.

Now let's see how things are with video playback. For some unknown reason, Dice Player - NVIDIA's recommended player that uses hardware acceleration - did not work correctly on the Sony Tablet S during testing (although the paid version was used). An attempt to launch any video file in most cases resulted in the application crashing. Therefore, we had to use MX Video Player, which is far from being able to use hardware acceleration very often. The results were identical to what we observed on another tablet with Tegra 2 - ASUS Eee Pad Slider (comparison Slider with ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime in the field of video playback can be read). So we state that the miracle did not happen. The Sony tablet in this regard is no better and no worse than competitors on the same platform.

Operating system and applications

We have already said that Sony has developed its own shell for Android Honeycomb. This manifested itself in the icons of the main applications that have changed their appearance, the appearance of additional mini-icons (in the upper left part of the screen, near the Google search bar) and nice effects.

Icons redrawn by Sony now look more uniform: they are all dark purple, strictly square. But for some reason, not all applications received updated icons (even from pre-installed ones). Therefore, there is still no general uniformity.

Of the applications, it is worth noting the interface design Music player. Here we see randomly scattered albums, each of which can be pushed aside, turned over at any angle and, of course, you can start listening. Apart from Music player there is also a standard android application Music.

Appendix social leader is a social media content aggregator. Alas, only Facebook and Twitter are supported. Wi-Fi wire- utility for checking Wi-Fi connection and getting information about it.

Very interesting tool - Remote control. Let's talk about it in more detail. The app turns your tablet into a universal remote control. This is possible due to the fact that the Sony Tablet S has an infrared port.

The setup is elementary: select the type of device (TV, BD and DVD players, network media players, receivers, speakers, etc.), then select the manufacturer of the device.

In our case, we wanted to set up an LG TV and an Apple TV 2 network media player. Both were found among the proposed options. True, the application does not offer a choice of specific models (even when this model is obvious - as is the case with Apple TV 2).

And this is where the main difficulty awaits us. When the device type and manufacturer are selected, you are prompted to select the type of remote control. There are nine types in total, and you need to simply search through them to find the one on which the buttons displayed on the tablet will work.

In our case, the TV "responded" when choosing the fifth type. After this is done, all that remains is to configure the gesture control (for example, by default, swiping up increases the volume, and swiping down decreases the volume). Everything, now the TV control is configured. Similarly, with Apple TV, only there we did not have to select the types of remote control - apparently, there were no options there. And indeed, everything worked fine. That's just in the case of Apple TV, one cannot but find fault with the lack of an alphabetic keyboard. Users of this device (and others like it) know how tedious it is to use the joystick to enter a YouTube search query (by typing one letter at a time). It would be very convenient if using a tablet it became possible to do this simply by typing on a virtual QWERTY keyboard.

Also from the applications we note DLNA(the ability to stream content from the tablet to DLNA-compatible devices) and reader- similar to iBooks. True, it seemed to me not very convenient and functional - free readers from the Google Play Store (as the Android Market is now called) and the aforementioned iBooks on iOS are more convenient.

From pleasant trifles - application Clock. This is if you want to use the tablet as a photo frame.

More - File Transfer: A file manager that allows you to conveniently transfer data from an SD card to the device's internal memory and vice versa.

In terms of games, here we are offered Pinball Heroes and the old Crash Bandicoot, developed for the first PlayStation and now available on the Sony Tablet S. The idea itself is curious (a nostalgic dream!), but in fairness, we note that playing PSone games on a touch screen - very unusual, and not the pleasure, of course.

In general, Sony did a very good job on the software. Yes, there are no serious software packages like Polaris Office here (by the way, it's a pity). But those applications that the tablet developers nevertheless equipped with are really useful and pleasant, they expand the functionality of the device in an unexpected way (for example, in the case of remote control). As the main disadvantage, we note the difficulty of obtaining root access (although, of course, various instructions can be found on the Web) and problems with adb drivers (in order to connect the tablet to a PC). Accordingly, it will not be easy to be able to take screenshots, for example. But, again, this problem is solvable. The proof of this is the screenshots in this article.

Connection

As already mentioned, starting from December 2011, Sony Tablet S is available in a version with a 3G module. 3G works correctly, we have no complaints. It is difficult to adequately test the 3G speed, because, firstly, the operator and the tariff can act as a limiter, and secondly, the reception will not be equally confident everywhere (in other words, on the ground floor and on the 15th floor of the same building, the speed may be different). But still, “to calm our conscience”, we launched the Speedtest.net utility (as an application from the Google Play Store).

In the screenshot above, you should pay attention only to the speed of receiving files, because when transferring files, the operator artificially lowered the speed due to excess traffic.

Another scenario for using the 3G module is sending SMS/MMS messages. Everything is standard here: there is an application in Android Honeycomb SMS/MMS, this tablet is no exception. Moreover, the design of the Sony application did not change.

Camera

The situation with the cameras of the Sony Tablet S is the same as that of the Sony Tablet P. There are two cameras: the front one (0.3 MP) provides the possibility of video communication, including via Skype. Rear (5 MP) - for taking photos and videos.

The image quality is acceptable, although the colors lack saturation and the image as a whole lacks detail. As pluses, we note a small amount of noise and artifacts (see a fragment of the above frame below).

The tablet takes good pictures of the text, you can shoot documents before leaving and then calmly study them on the road.

Video recording is done in 720p resolution. The quality is not bad, the main complaint is the same as for the Tablet P: the bitrate could be higher. A 31-second clip filmed with the rear camera of the Sony Tablet S is available for download (MP4 format, size 24.9 MB).

Offline work

We weren't happy with the battery life. True, it cannot be said that it completely disappointed us, but ... If we play an SD-resolution movie (685 Kbps, 608 × 256, Xvid Advanced [email protected], Dice Player was used, and hardware acceleration was activated), set the brightness to maximum, and make the volume so that it is comfortable to watch with headphones, the battery will run out in about four and a half hours. It won't be enough. Of course, you can say that the brightness should not be twisted to the maximum, but alas, with automatic brightness, the image seems darkish. Therefore, the maximum brightness in this case is not a whim. You can play Angry Birds Seasons on a tablet for about five and a half hours. It's also an average result.

findings

The Sony Tablet S is an interesting tablet. Perhaps this is a reasonable compromise between originality and generally accepted standards. It seems that everything is “like with people”, but not boring, but with a twist. A screen with a standard resolution for 10-inch tablets, but not 10 inches, but 9.4. The case is like standard dimensions and weight, but with an unusual asymmetry (a thickening on top that shifts the center of gravity). Similarly with OS and applications. We especially note the presence of an infrared port and the ability to transfer media data to DLNA-compatible devices.

Yes, at the moment Sony Tablet S (even with a 3G module) does not look so attractive against the backdrop of high-profile announcements from Apple, ASUS, Samsung and other competitors. But if you're not into chasing the latest tech and have a passion for the Sony brand, then the Tablet S is an obvious and not bad choice. Sony Tablet P is still too extravagant thing, but Tablet S is quite a mainstream. However, not banal, like most "iPad-like" products, but with its own face. And, by the way, quite reasonable price.

To say that the Sony Tablet S is fundamentally different from other tablets is a lie. It is, of course, rectangular, with a glossy frame around the 9.4-inch screen, the familiar Tegra 2 nests inside, and it all runs Android Honeycomb 3.2. Painfully familiar. However, the devil is in the details.

magazine cover

Yet there are clear differences. For example, Sony did not pursue miniaturization, as a result of which the tablet looks overweight - 20.6 mm in the thickest part. But you can’t confuse it with another Android tablet: on the side and back, it looks a bit like a folded magazine, except that you can’t unfold it back. Such a cunning shape allows you to comfortably hold the Sony Tablet S in your hands: in a horizontal orientation, it does not slip out of your hands, and in a portrait orientation it fits perfectly into the palm of your hand with a “fold line”. It's funny, though, that Sony in the specifications gives separately the "thickness" of the tablet and separately - the dimensions of its "soft spot". In brackets, so unobtrusively.

Dimensions theoretically allow you to build more good and different connectors into the tablet. But in practice, Sony limited itself to one MicroUSB Host, one 3.5 mm mini-jack (which, by the way, is designed to connect a headset with a microphone) and, for which we thank the Japanese, a full-size SD memory card reader. That is, a card from the camera can now be inserted directly into the tablet without hesitation. I wish they released normal photo editing software for Android ... It's surprising that there is no support for Memory Stick cards. It seems that Sony has decided to change its standards in this regard.

All connectors are located on the left side, and the right one is given to thin and not very convenient buttons - two for volume control and one for on / off. There is also a tiny hole with the inscription "Reset" - apparently, Honeycomb, even in version 3.2, is still not stable enough. Before our eyes, the tablet never hung, so we can only guess about the degree of usefulness of the button.

There is also a speaker on each side, and the last remaining connector is hidden on the bottom - this is a four-pin branded port for a docking station, charging and other accessories. For an unknown purpose, a lanyard attachment is provided on the case. We sympathize in advance with those who decide to hang this tablet around their necks... Of course, it is relatively light - about 600 grams, but it's still not worth experimenting.

Judging by the amount of empty space on the side faces, the tablet could have been loaded with connectors much denser. Since the designers still found a place to roam, it would be logical to place HDMI and a full-fledged USB here - or better, two at once. The interior space also appears to be by no means fully utilized. Based on Sony's battery life numbers, the battery in the Tablet S has about the same capacity as the competition. About 6 hours of video viewing, about the same amount of web surfing - however, it is not specified at what level of display brightness such indicators are achieved.

Speaking of the display. It's about as good as other Android tablets around 10 inches. High brightness, good viewing angles, rich colors. The technology in the declared characteristics is not specified, but in terms of image quality it looks like it is IPS. Only the proprietary TruBlack technology let us down, which was supposed to make the black color very black - for some reason it turned out just the opposite.

The glass that covers the display has a decent strength - we could not scratch it with the keys. But you can’t say the same about the case, the back wall of the tablet is scratched without much effort. This is true both for the glossy black surface and for the small silver insert at the bottom of the case. The glossy part, by the way, successfully collects fingerprints. And the display collects them with a vengeance - not a single tablet "slams" like the Sony Tablet S.

You can find fault with the sound volume of the built-in speakers - at the maximum, two Tablet S speakers sound quieter than the only “beep” of a smartphone that is not the most musical in the world. But the sound quality of the tablet is much higher - there are noticeably more mid and low frequencies. You can watch movies at home, in transport you will have to arm yourself with headphones.

There are two cameras in the new product, as expected, two - 5 megapixels in the back and 0.3 in the front. The rear shoots mediocre - as in most tablets. On the other hand, it copes well with shooting in low light, and it doesn’t produce any special noise - it seems that some kind of software noise reduction is working in the background. Too bad there's no flash. The front camera… how to say censorship… Well, what else can you expect from a tiny VGA-resolution matrix?

⇡ Clothes for honeycombs

Sony likes to supplement the functionality of the operating system with a lot of proprietary software. The Tablet S was no exception. There are a lot of changes and additions: for example, the screen of installed applications is completely different from the standard one. There is also a proprietary on-screen keyboard - it looks more interesting than the usual android one, and it's more pleasant to work with.

I really liked the music player: the folders with music in it are presented in the form of boxes with CDs that can be dragged around the “table”. The only pity is that the zoom function is not provided. And there is not much space on the “table” - if you upload a decent-sized music collection to your tablet, then all this can turn into a chaotic pile of small icons.

Judging by the set of pre-installed programs, the purpose of the tablet is mainly “home”: it has, for example, a (terribly inconvenient) TV remote control. For the sake of it, by the way, an infrared port was hidden somewhere in the Tablet S. Also, the tablet is able to play whatever your heart desires on a moderately remote TV via DLNA. Unless, of course, the TV or the set-top box connected to it allows this. This, by the way, to some extent compensates for the lack of HDMI.

Unlike other tablet manufacturers, Sony has a trump card up its sleeve: a long and successful work in the game consoles and related content market. For example, the Tablet S is prudently flooded with a childhood game - Crash Bandicoot, and a PlayStation One emulator at the same time. It seems to be about the same as on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play.

But if on a phone with a relatively low resolution of a relatively small screen, old games created for warm, tube TVs look fine, then on a tablet with a moderately high resolution, large interpolated pixels are clearly visible. Perhaps this will add nostalgic sensations to someone, but the PSX games on the Tablet S still look doubtful.

But the screen version of the gamepad is not as scary as one might expect. The large sizes of the buttons allow you not to miss, so the red bandicoot imp confidently runs forward, jumps at the right moment and sends oncoming turtles and crabs into the unknown distance. One Sony game, of course, will not be limited, but the rest - if you please, download for money.

In the current version of the firmware, localization suffers a little. In addition to all sorts of funny points like “Before. files” and “Reference manual…”, there are also untranslated pieces. Say, in the list of what can be done with a music file, among the translated items there is a certain “Throw”. Did you think it meant "Throw away"? But no, it turns out to "throw" on the nearest DLNA device. In general, the firmware is not that raw, but certain improvements will not harm it.

⇡ Conclusion

The tablet market lacked diversity, especially in Russia. We expected something unusual from Sony Tablet S: firstly, it is still Sony, and secondly, the company did not immediately enter this market, so it could well take into account the mistakes of competitors ... But nothing really outstanding was expected: a novelty too similar to other tablets, it lacks something special - some zest.

On the other hand, if we make allowances for high expectations, then everything turned out not so bad at all - at least not worse than many. Tablet S turned out to be convenient, fast, with a good screen and a good set of additional software. And the appearance is quite interesting - at least it allows you to stand out from the crowd. What more could you want from a tablet?

Only the price is a little embarrassing: for a version with 16 GB of memory and without a 3G module in Russia, they will ask for 18,990 rubles. The iPad 2 costs the same in the same configuration. Having added four thousand more (namely, that's how much you have to pay for a model with 32 GB of memory), you can take the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 - thin and light, but, unfortunately, quite thoughtful. Another option - ASUS Eee Pad Transfromer with a docking station - with a keyboard, a hefty battery and other amenities. A technocrat's dream, but weighs almost like a real laptop. In a word, all existing alternatives still have certain drawbacks, so the Tablet S has a very real chance to move the competition a little. At least the strength of the brand.

Externally, Sony Tablet S gives the impression of an expensive and reliable device. The only complaint, besides the controversial thickness, is the glossy black cover, which picks up fingerprints very well and will probably get scratched when using the tablet without a case. However, during testing, no scratches appeared on it.

Screen

The tablet is equipped with a 9.4-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels and an aspect ratio of 16:9. The screen is protected by tempered glass, so it is not easy to scratch it. The diagonal of the Sony Tablet S display is quite a bit inferior to the top models of competitors, but subjectively the difference is almost imperceptible.

The image displayed by the Tablet S has high viewing angles, which is primarily characteristic of IPS technology. In principle, we have a standard high-quality display that does not differ from other products of the same price category. The picture is quite bright, the colors are saturated - there is nothing to complain about.

As for the cameras, in this regard, the tablet from Sony also has nothing to brag about. It seems that installing a 5-megapixel main and 0.3-megapixel front camera in such devices has become an unspoken rule. As is the case with other tablets, the Tablet S lacks the stars in the sky, although it takes decent pictures in good light. In any case, taking pictures with a tablet is somehow strange, it looks especially funny from the outside.

Hardware platform, autonomy

Like all current Android flagships, Tablet S is based on NVIDIA Tegra 2 with a dual-core GHz chip. The rest of the specifications include 1 GB of RAM, a 16 or 32 GB drive, depending on the modification, a Bluetooth module.

It is curious that the tablet received an infrared port through which you can control home appliances. Let's pay tribute to Sony - the equipment is supported not only by this company, but also by other manufacturers. If necessary, you can independently program the Tablet S to control any TV and not just a TV. You can “make friends” with a tablet with almost any household appliance that provides control from the remote control. It is naive to think that this is any significant innovation. It was also possible to control household appliances from a Windows Mobile-based PDA, but this possibility is not popular. Why? Probably because the remote is still more familiar, even if at home there are a dozen remotes for various devices.

I want to note the high speed of the tablet when working with any applications. It is comfortable to watch movies on the Tablet S, games run without problems, including those ported from the first generation PlayStation.

The Sony Tablet S is equipped with a 5000 mAh battery. This is an average for Android models. One charge is enough for less than five hours of video viewing. In a more gentle mode, close to everyday use, the tablet will last a working day, that is, about 8 hours.

Software

The tablet runs Android 3.2, which is much more stable and productive than the first editions of Honeycomb. Unlike smartphone versions of Android, this platform is perfectly optimized for large screens.

The operating system interface is already familiar to Ferra's readers. Before us is the main desktop and four additional ones, on which you can place various widgets and application icons. You can change the content of the screens by clicking on the "+" in the upper right corner of the screen. Nearby there is a button to go to all installed programs.

The Google search engine is located at the top left of the screen. Sony has redesigned this element by adding four shortcut keys next to the search for the browser, email client, remote control menu and e-book reader. In the lower left corner there are virtual buttons "Back", "Home" and a button to call the last running programs. To the right, next to the clock, there is a notification panel and a menu with quick settings.

Sony has done a lot of work on the design of the user interface. The changes cannot be called global, but still they have changed the standard design quite a lot. The company has added new themes, redrawn shortcuts, and introduced an updated screen of installed applications. The music player and video player have become much more effective, the built-in browser and on-screen keyboard have been optimized.

Both in the design and in the set of applications from Sony, one can feel the desire of the company to demonstrate the gaming orientation of the device. The tablet is certified to run games from the first generation PlayStation and PSP. It comes with an emulator for these consoles. By the way, a very handy thing. Of course, it cannot be compared with analog gamepads, but today it is the best that can be implemented on a touch screen. However, it is too early to talk about a single ecosystem that would unite Sony tablets, set-top boxes and smartphones. Thematic design and several applications are not enough for this. It remains to be hoped that the Japanese will not stop there and continue to integrate multimedia services into different devices.

Competitors

Apple iPad 2. Perhaps all manufacturers will have to get used to the idea that their most modern tablets will be compared primarily with the brainchild of Apple. In such an important parameter as price, the Tablet S and iPad 2 are similar, and it is also not easy to identify a technology leader. Both devices are comfortable in work - subjectively, the tablet from Sony is not inferior in performance to the American device. On the iPad 2 side, there are more versions available for sale - here you have just Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi with 3G, and memory from 16 to 64 GB. Tablet S is only available in two versions - with a drive capacity of 16 and 32 GB. This is a significant drawback that limits the scope of the apparatus. Still, 3G support guarantees much greater mobility than Wi-Fi.

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The main competitors have already brought their products to the market, and Sony waited until the fall of 2011 and only then announced its vision for this class of devices. Did Sony manage to surprise buyers? Partly yes! Based on the combination of characteristics, a tablet called Sony Tablet S turned out to be an interesting and original solution, although not ideal. On the other hand, are there many ideal devices today? In this article I will try to describe my impressions of working with this tablet, which was purchased in March 2012. As a side note, screenshots and performance thoughts will be based on Android 4.0. On May 31, owners of the Sony Tablet S got the opportunity to officially update the operating system. And this update brought with it some nice innovations. So let's go!

Design and ergonomics

It is noticeable to the naked eye that Sony did not want to release another featureless device, which is a uniformly thin rectangle, similar to what Samsung and Asus brought to the market. The designers of the Japanese manufacturer pretty much racked their brains over how to highlight their creation on store shelves. And they succeeded! Sony Tablet S is not to be confused with any other tablet. The point is in its shape of the case: it is something similar to a magazine folded in half. The thickness of the case at the top of the tablet (just where the hands hold it) is much greater than the thickness at the bottom and is as much as 24 mm.

Due to this, a more confident grip is achieved when holding the device on weight. And this is important when you have to do something with the tablet while standing. Hands get tired noticeably less. In this matter, I can compare the Sony Tablet S with the Asus Prime tablet. Taiwanese product is a simple metal rectangle, very thin. This creates some inconvenience. The edges of the tablet cut into the palm of your hand, making it harder for your fingers to grasp. So Sony designers not only managed to distinguish the Sony Tablet S from the crowd of competitors, but also significantly improved its ergonomics.

Moreover, the back surface of the tablet is made of rough plastic, completely non-slip under the fingers. There are also four plastic feet to prevent the Sony Tablet S from slipping on the table. This is also a big plus.

Few interfaces. There is a charger port on the bottom, and a 3.5 mm jack on the left side. In the same place, under a beautiful cover, you can find slots for an SD memory card (which is a definite plus!) And for a SIM card (I have a version of Sony Tablet S with 3G support). The microUSB connector for synchronization with a PC has not gone anywhere. And through a special adapter, you can connect an external drive to the tablet, so that the host mode is implemented. However, having a slot for full-size SD cards, I never figured out why I should connect something else via cable. You can charge the tablet only through a proprietary connector, charging does not come from a PC. The power supply unit is extremely similar to that of Sony netbooks, it is quite large for tablet standards.

Do you think that in this section I will only praise Sony? No, I'll tell you about a fly in the ointment. Or rather, there are two of them. The first is the screen cover and the front side of the device. They are monstrously easily soiled, and instantly smeared with fingers. So every day the tablet can and should be wiped with napkins to clean the optics. And prints interfere with work under sunlight, since the display is already glossy.

The second is the location of the three keys: power and volume control. They are located at the top on the right side literally close to each other. Although they are embossed, they are too crowded, and there are rare erroneous pressings. However, I can not fail to note their pleasant move and a clear tactile response.

In the end, I can say this: the appearance and ease of holding in the hands of the tablet are excellent. You won't get carried away here at all. Sony managed to create a really nice device with minor exceptions.

Screen

It uses an IPS-matrix with a diagonal of 9.4 inches and a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels. Based on the experience of long-term operation, I can safely say that when used indoors, the screen makes an exceptionally rosy impression. I note good color reproduction, no less good viewing angles. Perhaps someone will be somewhat upset by the imperfect black color. On the Internet, you can find many opinions that the white color on the Sony Tablet S screen has a yellowish tint. Probably, it is so, but it does not cause any obvious problems. Outside, things are not so good. The maximum brightness in direct sunlight is no longer enough, and it is difficult to read from the screen. Plus, the extremely high visibility of the display also does not improve readability. The screen coating is prone to scratches, so wear the device with care.

So, when using at home, the screen in the Sony Tablet S is more than good, but on the street there may be problems. There it is better to use Samsung AMOLED screens or Asus matrices with a high brightness function.

autonomy

Agree, this aspect is extremely important for any Android device. The Sony Tablet S is based on the Nvidia Tegra 2 chip (2 cores), which is moderately optimized in terms of power saving. In addition, there is a feeling that something was done inside Sony when finalizing Android. But first things first.

Under the hood we have a 5000 mAh battery. It's sloppy. Especially for Android, which is famous for its immodest appetite for battery life. On the official website, the company declares 7 hours of work from charging. In reality, this is what happens. If you turn on Wi-Fi and start browsing the web, the battery will last for 5.5-6 hours. The brightness was set to about 50% of the maximum. I note that my tablet also supports 3G. So, when working through a cellular network, the battery was subjectively less discharged. If you watch a DVDrip of 2.2 GB for 1.5 hours, then approximately 25% of the total charge will be used up. That is, the tablet will be able to show video for 5-6 hours (but it depends on the resolution and bitrate). "Heavy" games will land the battery in about 4 hours.

And now for the bad. When writing proprietary lotions for Android, Sony programmers did something that, even in standby mode with Wi-Fi turned off and a dark screen, the tablet loses 2.5-3% of the battery charge per hour. That is, overnight you will miss about 15-20% of the charge! This is strange. It is worth considering that some software also significantly increases power consumption. For example, HD Widgets spent another 2% of the charge per hour during their work. I had to remove them.

The tablet is charged for two hours. I advise you to buy a cradle, with its help it is much easier to charge the Sony Tablet S, and the tablet looks more elegant in such a stand. According to Sony Tablet S does not look like a strong man in terms of power consumption. In my opinion, Sony engineers made a mistake with the battery capacity, it should have been made more powerful. And so Sony Tablet S is not the kind of device with which you can fearlessly leave the house for 10 hours. It will not survive until the end of the working day with heavy use. This turns it into a bedside device. To make matters worse, I could not find external batteries for sale that can connect to the connector in the Sony Tablet S. It will not work to charge the device on the go.

As a result, power consumption is a serious minus of the tablet. To some extent, we can hope for an update of Sony tablets coming in the fall, which will certainly include models based on the Tegra 3 chip. Having an Asus tablet based on this solution, I can say that Tegra 3 really consumes less power in standby mode. So we are waiting.

Camera and multimedia

The tablet has 2 cameras: in front with a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels, and in the back with 5 megapixels. You can use video. The rear camera is ordinary in terms of capabilities, you should not expect good photos from it. Rather, it is a kind of insurance when you urgently need to shoot something, regardless of the final quality, but there is nothing else at hand. Although I have already seen several times how people recorded videos on full-sized 10-inch tablets. Personally, I find this a strange thing to do. By the way, Sony Tablet S video records in 720p resolution (but the sound is very mediocre). The camera interface is quite convenient, the settings switch quickly. The speed of saving photos is high, there are no problems. But everything is spoiled by a dim display, which is very difficult to read in the sun. So shooting outdoors with the Sony Tablet S is on a cloudy day.

If we talk about video playback, then Sony did not surprise us with anything. For example, Samsung has been building support for all popular codecs and video formats into its tablets for a long time. Sony does not like to do this, and therefore out of the box the tablet “eats” only WMV and MP4 video. Yes, you can install some program for downloading videos from Youtube, and they will be perfectly opened by the device in resolution up to 720p. But for watching movies received from torrents, I strongly recommend installing the free MX Player. Things are better with music. Sony not only built a branded and beautiful player, but also added support for audiophile FLAC and OGG formats to the tablet. The volume is enough, the quality is very, very good. Good headphones are required, you should not limit yourself to simple plugs. Then you can enjoy lossless music. The Sony Tablet S completely replaces the audio player in terms of quality, and you can safely listen to something instrumental while reading the news. Yes, and the stereo speakers in the tablet are very, very good! It's nice to listen to music through them. The photo gallery is simple and pretty neat, photo thumbnails load quickly. Android 4.0 on Sony Tablet S On May 31, Sony released an official update to the fourth version of Android for Russian tablets. What did it really bring? First, the built-in browser has become faster and more convenient. Added fine adjustments to scaling and text size. You can quickly switch from mobile to desktop version of the site. Bookmarks sync with desktop Google Chrome. Remained support for Flash. Second, on the fourth Android, you can install mobile Google Chrome. Outwardly, it practically copies the desktop version. The only pity is that there is no permanently visible bookmarks bar at the top of the browser. But we are pleased with the speed and design of the application. Somewhat frustrating is the lack of support for Flash technology¸ on a number of resources you will not be able to watch the video. On the other hand, it's time to get used to it, because mobile Chrome will become a regular browser in Android in the future. Thirdly, Sony programmers managed to achieve an important thing: the smoothness of the interface! And on Android devices, this is a very big problem. It is not uncommon for 4-core flagships to stutter when scrolling desktops. Sony Tablet S is exceptionally pleasant in this aspect. Fourth, a proprietary file manager made in the company's corporate style has become the basis for working with files. The fact is that on the fourth Android, many third-party managers for some reason lost the ability to delete files from the memory card. You have to work through the staff. Fifth - you can "without dancing with a tambourine" take a screenshot of the screen. To do this, press and hold the power and volume down buttons. But the same browser almost always, after being minimized, will start loading previously opened pages again. Many games also do not like to be minimized into the background and crash. So, Sony decided to do something in this direction. Now at the bottom of the screen you always see a button that allows you to launch one of three mini-applications on top of any current application. It can be a browser, a program for controlling home appliances via infrared or a calculator. The last two options are not very interesting, but the browser is curious. For example, you read the tweet feed in the same Twitcaster. And you want to quickly look something on the Internet. Now you do not need to minimize the active application and launch a full-formatted web browser. It is enough to press the mentioned button, and the built-in browser window will open on half of the display, right on top of the running application. You can move this mini-program to the edge of the display, and it will remain there waiting for a call, almost without interfering with the previous program. To some extent, this looks like an opportunity from when you can open two applications on the display at once, dividing the display between them. Sony has added a panorama mode to the camera app. This may be useful to someone, although I did not understand the meaning of this step. The photo gallery has acquired the ability to directly access the memory card and built-in photo processing tools. You can change their parameters as in a graphical editor. Sony's branded programs have not gone away either: an email client and a reader for Twitter and Facebook. They are quite usable. Among the general pleasant features of the fourth Android, I will highlight the ability to remove unnecessary notifications with a swipe, the function of creating folders for grouping applications and quickly launching the camera from the lock screen. By the way, the next version of Android has an index of 4.1, so there is a possibility of updating to it. But the fifth Android will most likely require the purchase of a more powerful tablet. findings I won't give extensive recommendations on how to set up software, since everyone has different tasks, and the Google store has an extensive selection of applications. I will limit myself to the most important programs. I advise you to install Google Chrome Mobile, Tweetcaster, MX Player, Kingsoft Office and some kind of Task Manager. What to say in the end? In terms of design and ergonomics, the Sony Tablet S turned out to be a very successful and original solution. Like it or not, but the Japanese company managed to create not just another clone of the tablets of competitors, but something of its own, which stands out from the background of analogues. Pleases and a wide range of modifications. You can buy versions without 3G with 16 or 32 GB of memory, you can buy with 3G. What anyone likes. The case does not shield anything, so we have a stable connection to both Wi-Fi networks and satellites. The 3G module works fine, the sensitivity is high, on the Megafon network I got a download speed of about 6 Mbps. The color rendering screen is very pleasant, but it lacks brightness on the street. This is worth considering. Power consumption is, along with the display, the second main disadvantage of the device. For good, you need to operate the Sony Tablet S in places where there is an outlet nearby. But the power supply itself is rather big, it is inconvenient to carry it with you. So essentially we have a home tablet that you should not take with you on trips. In terms of multimedia, the tablet looks decent: it plays music perfectly (the speakers are very good!), shows movies (through third-party video players), plays almost everything. Of course, toys optimized for Tegra 3 will require a different device, but there are not very many such games. So, should you buy the Sony Tablet S today? The prices, frankly, remain inhumane (the 16 GB plus 3G version costs an average of 19 thousand, and without 3G - 16 thousand). There is a markup for the Sony brand. And that's the whole point! If you are a fan of "sony-style", then here it is in abundance. And you have to take it. If you are indifferent to Sony technology, then there are a fair amount of cheaper analogues on the market with the same characteristics. And in this case, the Sony Tablet S is not the best option, and I cannot recommend it. By and large, we see the most typical situation: Sony has made another product "for its own", who are ready to significantly overpay. The company does not look back at competitors and does not always set adequate prices for its solutions. This is bad. But so far I don't see any changes in this situation. This is not to say that the product itself is a failure, the Sony Tablet S is generally pleasant. But it should cost less. In the meantime, his purchase will be more emotional than pragmatic. This is really a product "for their own". © Oleg Kravchenko,