The Sony Tablet S was one of the more impressive Android tablets when it debuted in 2011. Now with its Xperia Tablet S, Sony has revised the design, upgraded to Tegra 3, and updated its media ecosystem.
Sony Xperia Tablet S
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
These improvements deliver a more than solid tablet that unfortunately currently suffers from some serious performance issues.
Sony does its best to offer its own spin on a media ecosystem and has built one of the most comfortable large form factor tablets to date, but depending on your needs, there may not be enough here to justify its $400 price, especially given its current performance issues.
Editors' note:The Sony Xperia Tablet S has a glaring Wi-Fi performance issue that causes its wireless adapter to shut off whenever the tablet enters sleep mode and sometimes requires a full system restart to get Wi-Fi working again. Because of this (among a few other issues detailed in this review), I've decided to give the Xperia Tablet S a 5 in performance. Sony is aware of these performance issues and says that an OTA fix for the Wi-Fi issue is "coming soon." I'll revisit the tablet's performance rating as soon as its released.
Editors' note update: On September 21, 2012, Sony issued an OTA update for the Xperia Tablet S, addressing the Wi-Fi performance issue. The Xperia tablet S no longer requires restart when returning from sleep in order to re-enable wireless. As a result, I've raised the tablet's performance score to 6; however, there are still problems with the Wi-Fi disconnect policy's implementation. These problems are detailed in the performance section below.
Design
As manufacturers continued to spit out tablets at nearly a weekly rate, the original Sony Tablet S found a way to stand out from the pack thanks to its unique "rolled-back magazine" wedge design. While the new Xperia Tablet S retains the magazine look, the wedge shape of the original is gone. The new tablet sports a more refined look and now lies nearly completely flat as opposed to being noticeably elevated.
The tablet sports a 9.4-inch screen and feels really light and comfortable to hold, especially when held in one hand in portrait mode; something that can’t be said for most tablets larger than 9 inches.
