Sony Xperia Tablet S hands-on (video)
Sony officially launched its new tablet here at IFA -- and it's keeping that folded-over profile. Happily, it's running Android ICS. We've just spent some time with the Xperia Tablet S here in Berlin and it's looking like Sony wants this to be the center of your media-consuming world. The new tablet pals up with the company's range of phones, bearing that familiar Xperia branding on a freshly hewn metal slab. Yes, the new tablet sidesteps the plastic build of Sony's last two tablets going for a solid metal build. Fortunately, it feels just as light in the hand, while that folded design also remains well-balanced. We're particularly pleased with the tactile finish on the folded-over surface of the tablet -- it's very grippable. Internally, we're dealing with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, while a 10-inch 1,280 x 800 IPS display will be showing off all that media and gaming content. Browse our gallery of images below and check out our hands-on video and first impressions after the break.
%Gallery-163657%
The screen had strong viewing angles, while some brief video playback worked without a hitch. It was smooth and sharp enough -- although we're always tending towards higher resolutions than what Sony's put on the table here. Swishing through home screens and web browsing barely troubled NVIDIA's quad-core processor, and we managed to reach a browser benchmark score of 1,884 ms on SunSpider, putting it in a decent place for an initial show floor model. Performance was a little spotty when it came to browsing sites and we hope that it'll run a bit smoother once a final model lands in our hands in a few weeks.
Sony has also loaded the tablet with a whole wave of its home-grown apps, covering social networks, music and video through its Unlimited services and more -- but it remains to be seen whether people are also hungry for Sony's multimedia content.
Joseph Volpe and Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.
