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What is Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews?

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Windows 8 tablets face a raft of problems. Few tablet buyers know the difference between “full Windows 8” and Windows RT, the platform is recognised as a tablet platform much less than Android or iOS and many Windows tablets are expensive.

The Asus VivoTab Smart tries to side-step these issues. It’s a 10.1-inch full Windows 8 tablet that costs just £400, the same price as the cheapest full-size iPad with Retina Display.

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews – Design and Specs

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Asus VivoTab Smart can offer full Windows 8 at a pretty low price because it uses a lower-power Intel Atom CPU and unassuming design. Higher-end Windows 8 tablets use Intel Core-series processors, from the same family as those seen in expensive laptops. They’re in a different league to the Intel Atom chip seen here.
 
Its bodywork is functional and sensible too - there are few design embellishments. The Asus Vivotab Smart is as slim and light as Android tablets of the same size, at 570g and 9.7mm thick, and its rear is soft-touch finish plastic.

This type of plastic feels great in-hand, but doesn’t leave the same impression of luxury as the anodised aluminium of an iPad. It’s also prone to damage.

Scratches strip away the black/brown finish to reveal the white plastic underneath, and the styling is limited to the off-black colour of the rear and Asus logo on the back. The Asus VivoTab Smart is not out to become a tablet whose bodywork sticks in your mind for years to come.

As a 10.1-inch 16:9 aspect tablet – making it 26cm long – this tablet is also a little too large to be truly portable. It’s best thought-of as a device to use at home or while sitting down on the bus/train, rather than when standing up on public transport with one arm clutching a rail. For that you’re better off with an iPad mini or Google Nexus 7. There is no super-portable Windows tablet, yet.

Unassuming design is met by mid-level specs. Its CPU is a 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760 dual-core chip, it has 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. In an Android tablet those memory figures would sound impressive, but they are less so here.

The Asus VivoTab Smart runs an OS that will often have 8GB of RAM at its disposal, and after Windows 8 and Asus’s own apps have taken their share of the internal storage, you’re left with just a shade over 30GB of the initial 64GB.

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews – Connectivity

What helps to mitigate the memory-chomping of Windows 8 is the microSD card slot on the left edge of the Asus VivoTab Smart. It uses a cover that blasts out like a rocket when prodded with a fingernail, though, so be sure to act with care unless you want to lose it.

Next to the memory card slot sits a microHDMI video output. Also on this edge is the microUSB slot, used to charge the battery.


This spread of connections sounds just about perfect for a tablet, but it’s less well-equipped than you might assume. As Windows 8 is a “computer” OS rather than a tablet one, its internal storage doesn’t simply show up as a drive when the Asus VivoTab Smart is attached to a computer. You’ll need to move files to a microSD memory card to get them over to the tablet.

A full-size USB socket or SD card slot comes in extremely handy with a Windows 8 tablet, and you get neither here. A USB port is not only handy for storage either – it would also let you plug in a mouse or keyboard. Asus also produces a neat Bluetooth keyboard cover for the tablet that attaches magnetically, but this is an optional extra.

Wireless connectivity fares better. The Asus VivoTab smart has the tablet standards Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as GPS and NFC.

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews – Screen

The Asus VivoTab Smart uses a typical tablet-style display. It features an IPS screen, which lets you turn the screen any which way you please without the image distorting or disappearing – as it would on most laptops.

The screen is 10.1 inches across and has a resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels. This results in pixel density of 155ppi, well below the resolution of rival tablets like the iPad with Retina Display and Google Nexus 10. As a result, text is slightly pixellated.

This is true of all Windows 8 tablets at this price – only more expensive tabs such as the Surface Pro offer full HD resolution screens at present – but if you’ve used a high pixel density screen, you will notice it.

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Image quality is decent, with just a slight yellow colour cast to whites and acceptable loss of brightness when angled. Top brightness could be higher, though.

Like so many other aspects of the Asus VivoTab Smart, the screen isn’t high-end, but it pays enough attention to the basics to get by. It is coated with an oleophobic (fingerprint-resistant) coating, uses toughened glass and, thanks to the IPS panel, offers enough viewing angle flexibility for the ways in which a tablet is used. 

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. How many devices do we really need? A tablet, a laptop, a phone and a desktop PC? Gadgets like the Acer Aspire P3 want to reduce the amount of tech clutter in our lives. It’s a 11.6-inch Ultrabook-style laptop running Windows 8, and its screen part pops out to become a tablet.

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews – Design

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews – Screen

  

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews - Impressions

Whats is Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2?

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The original Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet was a good attempt at making a tablet that stood out from the myriad 10.1-inch Android offerings. However, it lacked refinement and was chunky; both forgivable were it not for the price. 

Lenovo has made some drastic changes to the ThinkPad Tablet 2. It runs Windows 8, and has moved from Tegra 2 to Intel Atom 1.8Ghz dual-core processor. It backs that up with 2GB of RAM and 64GB SSD storage, but does that warrant the £130 price increase from its predecessor?

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews - Design and Build

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. It’s obvious a lot of thought has gone into making the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 slim, light and sleek. At just 600g it is 52g lighter than an iPad 4, more than 400g lighter than the Microsoft Surface but is a touch heavier than what is arguably its closest Android competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

Good quality soft touch plastic covers the rear, with discreet speaker slots at the bottom and a well-integrated camera and flash flanked by etched Lenovo and ThinkPad logos at the top. The ThinkPad mark makes it feel like a work tablet, harking back to the IBM ThinkPad laptops, and this is further supported by all-black body that makes it look all business. The one exception to the monotone colour scheme is a splash of red on the top left of the ThinkPad 2, which signifies the top of the elegantly integrated stylus.

The Lenovo Thinkpad 2’s lightness and grippy back means it can be held in one-hand with reasonable comfort. Softened edges (the left hand edge that houses the stylus is totally rounded) help too, though the soft-touch plastic attracts unsightly greasy finger marks.

On the top edge are a covered microSD and SIM (if you go for the 3G enabled version), and a headphone jack; on the left, a full size USB (a thoughtful inclusion) and a micro USB slot, which is used for charging the Lenovo ThinkPad 2’s durable battery.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 feels robust – as typifies all things with the ThinkPad band. It has a bit of give and flex in all the right places, though there are a few areas where the seams feel as if they could fit together a more snuggly. It’s a plain but stylish tablet but, all in all, Lenovo has done a good job designing the ThinkPad 2.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews – Screen and speakers

If you’ve mainly used laptops then you’ll be more than satisfied with the ThinkPad’s screen, but 1,366 x 768 is still the norm on Windows 8 tablets and it’s a far cry from high resolution ‘retina’ screens of the Apple iPad 4 or Google Nexus 10.

That said the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 manages well even without a super-high resolution. Colours are bright without being oversaturated and 720p HD video looks excellent – the Intel Atom processor is fine at streaming HD video. Lenovo has opted for an IPS screen, too, which means the viewing angles, are great.

The touch screen is brilliantly responsive and five-point touch support means all the gestures that Windows 8 supports work impressively; the zoom in and out of the homepage is particularly fun.

Your hands won’t cover the speakers when you’re holding the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 – something that many other tablets suffer from. They’re perfectly adequate for a tablet, without being outstanding, as they’re loud enough to watch a movie with company without straining your ears, and they create a pleasing stereo effect.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews – Connectivity

The Lenovo ThinkPad 2 comes with all you’d expect from Windows 8 tablets in terms of connectivity. There’s a welcome mini-HDMI out as well as a micro-SD card slot, which is essential if you consider there’s only 14GB of the 64GB spare after Windows 8 and the pre-installed software are accounted for. A micro-USB slot on the side of the tablet is used for charging only.

If you opt for the 3G version you can find the full size SIM card slot next to the micro-SD and obligatory headphone jack. We couldn’t test the Bluetooth keyboard connector dock as Lenovo had no available keyboards to test. We’ll update this review as soon as we get our hands on it, but we did find that even using a third party keyboard made the ThinkPad 2 a much better working tool.

It’s great to have a full size USB port, but it’s a bittersweet addition. Not only is it USB 2, not the faster USB 3 standard, it’s not powerful enough for an external hard drive to work, or any other USB-powered accessory, like a USB Pico projector.

It’s not great future proofing for a tablet that costs upwards of £500, especially one aimed at the business market. Yes, using a USB-powered hard drive or projector would sap power more quickly, but we’d like users to have the options to drain their battery faster for additional functionality if they want to. On the plus side USB flash drives/sticks work absolutely fine and appear in the ‘My computer’ section just as you’d expect on a laptop or desktop computer running Windows. 

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews – Specs and Performance

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Lenovo has an Intel dual-core Atom Z2760 processor running at 1.8GHz supported by an Intel Integrated HD SGX545 graphics chip, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. In practice this means that the ThinkPad Tablet 2 boots very quickly, 14 seconds in fact. However we’ve often lamented the performance of Atom Z2760 processor and unfortunately the ThinkPad Tablet 2 can’t eek out any extra performance from the chipset.

But the Atom Z2760 is an adequate performer at best. If you only use the ThinkPad Tablet 2 for light tasks, such as internet browsing, apps and basic programs, you won’t have many problems. But waiting for apps and programs to open is frustrating.

It copes well with full HD video, but don’t even think about anything but the most basic 3D gaming, multi-tasking or heavy duty applications, such as image or video editors. The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 grinds to a halt running these.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Amazon has become a pioneer of low-cost tablets with the company's Kindle Fire range standing alongside the Google Nexus 7 in re-defining what we can expect from a cheap tablet – just so long as you live in the USA, that is.

Here in the UK we haven’t done quite so well with Amazon’s tablets. They’ve taken an age to reach our shores, however the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is now finally available from Amazon UK, for the more-than-reasonable sum of £230. The same issues that niggled us about the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD still apply, but this is the best Kindle Fire tablet yet.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Design

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Like the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD before it, one of the first things to strike you about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is quite how heavy it is. At 567g it’s around 80 per cent heavier than an iPad mini. Although its screen is significantly smaller than a 10-inch tablet’s, it’s roughly the same weight as one of those larger tabs.

In the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, we found this quite a turn-off, but it’s less of an annoyance here because the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 shines as a lounge-bound tablet rather than one to take around with you. And the weight is offset by sturdy build.


The rear of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is finished in soft-touch plastic for a finger-friendly feel, and the body feels dense and strong, rather than just heavy. If you’re after something that’s more portable than a standard 10.1-inch tablet you’re in the wrong place, though. The chunky screen bezel ensures that this isn’t a particularly small tablet.

It’s also practical rather than pretty. Amazon hasn’t tried to hide the seam that circles the tablet’s edge, bordering the rear and side of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. In addition, the on-body buttons are graceless while the glossy strip of plastic on the rear that holds the speaker grilles is quirky rather than elegant.



However, this approach to styling works better here than it did in the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD.

Just like the Google Nexus 7, one of the few real hardware disappointments about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is that it does not offer expandable memory. Amazon offers a 16GB edition for £229 or a 32GB version for £259. Make the decision carefully, because aside from internal memory, you’re reliant on cloud storage.

The lack of expandable memory loses the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 a few flexibility points, but it wins some back with its use of a standard microUSB charging socket, rather than a proprietary one. Next to this you'll also find a microHDMI video output. This mirrors what’s on-screen on a TV, making it simple to turn the Kindle into a media centre for your living room. You don’t get an HDMI cable in the box, though.



The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is entirely geared towards landscape use, so both of these ports sit on the bottom edge of the tablet, which keeps the edges that your hands rest on clear of sockets. Its software does auto-rotate when the device is flipped around, though.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Connectivity

Although the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers the video output missing on most tablets, its wireless connectivity is basic. You get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but miss out on their more nuanced applications, and all other forms of wireless connectivity. There’s no 3G, no GPS, no NFC and no Wi-Fi Direct. The most glaring of these omissions is GPS – you can’t use the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as a navigation tool, as you can with a Google Nexus 7.


The other missing connectivity types are annoying, but are the sorts of things that many people would simply never use. NFC is a short-distance wireless communication standard that is best-known as a way to pay for small items on the high street, like cups of coffee. Would you really want to pull out a 9-inch tablet at the Starbucks cash register? We sure wouldn’t.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Screen

These connections are left out for several reasons. The biggest of these is cost, but also because the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 isn’t really designed for advanced tablet users in the first place. Amazon has picked its battles carefully, and wireless connectivity is one it has decided to bow out of.



Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Screen quality is not something the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 scrimps on however. In fact, the tablet's touch-sensitive display is excellent for the price. It uses an 8.9-inch IPS screen of 1080p resolution. Larger and more expensive tablets continue to use lower-quality, less pixel-packed screens, and this is the Fire HD 8.9’s strongest element. With a pixel density of 254ppi, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9's display is around as sharp as the iPad with Retina display, which boasts 263ppi.

Colour saturation, contrast and black level are all impressive too. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s interface actually uses a slightly greyish background that serves as an admission that its black levels aren’t quite perfect. However, this screen is seriously impressive and most importantly – given that its a Kindle device – is able to render pin-sharp text for eBook reading. With a lower-resolution tablet, text can look pixelated, making it far more tiring to read for long periods. There’s just one sore spot, which is that the maximum screen brightness isn’t that dazzling.

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. During the course of 2012, budget tablets suddenly got a whole lot better. For under £200 you can now get a seriously capable tablet that can do just about everything a £500 tablet can. The Asus MeMO Pad Smart is Asus’s latest attempt at an affordable 10.1-inch tab. It may have less personality than a bag of flour, but it provides a decent spread of features at a reasonable price.

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews - Design and Features

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Asus MeMO Pad Smart takes a pragmatic approach to design. Fancy finishes that will impress your fingers cost cash, and therefore this tablet uses simple, no-frills plastic.


Although the MeMO Pad's bodywork is thankfully free of any creaks or groans that might cause concern over general build quality, the device nonetheless doesn't feel particularly high-end. It’s a self-conscious sacrifice clearly aimed at getting the overal cost of the tablet down, however picking up the MeMO Pad after palming an iPad, the Asus doesn't feel like it's in the same league as Apple's device.

However, the MeMO Pad is neither heavy nor fat. In fact, at 580g and 9.9mm thick, its dimensions are similar to more expensive tablets. Aside from a lack of flair, there’s nothing wrong with the bodywork.



Asus is renowned for making products that techies love, and the connectivity of the Asus MeMO Pad Smart is no different. It employs a microUSB port rather than a proprietary one, and also has a dedicated microHDMI video output as well as a microSD card slot. None are executed with much fuss – there are no flaps and no attempt to hide these sockets – but it’s still a techy box-ticking exercise that many will appreciate.

The dedication to providing features often missing from lower-cost tablets continues with the stereo speakers. The two speaker grilles are located on the back of the tablet and produce better sound dispersal than a mono tablet when held in landscape – the usual orientation for movie-watching. The only serious omission is 3G, although this would, of course, push up the overall price of the tablet and no doubt lift it out of the out of the “budget” bracket.

To do that would effectively be game over for the Asus MeMO Pad Smart’s chances of getting a decent audience. NFC is missing too, and while it could be argued that's a future-proofing opportunity missed on the part of Asus, for the majority of users it will be no great loss.



As a lower-cost tablet, the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 predictably comes with 16GB of internal memory – the least usually seen in a 10-inch tablet.

This is a mercenary tablet in many respects. Its design is entirely vanilla, from the chunky bezel, the lack of style tweaks – or style full stop – to the generic-feeling construction. If you care about these kinds of things, you’re looking at the wrong tablet. Practicality and flexibility are key values for the Asus MeMO Pad Smart, not fluffy stuff like how the thing looks or feels. In a way, that's actually quite admirable.

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews - Screen

While we can just about live with the utilitarian design, the screen specifications are less easy to stomach. That's primarily because, at just 1,280 x 800-pixels, the MeMO Pad's 10-inch IPS screen feels more like a throwback to something you'd find on a 2011 or 2012 tablet.

That said, IPS (In-Plane Switching) is a great panel technology that quickly became the standard screen tech for tablets after it was used in the first iPad. It offers great viewing angles, which are much more important in a tablet than, say, a laptop.



The MeMO Pad's IPS screen delivers these impressive viewing angles too, but otherwise the display is not all that hot. It looks a little washed out, and often severely blown-out at top brightness. Now that we’ve been spoilt by high pixel density tablets like the Google Nexus 10, the relatively low-resolution screen here appears a little rough and pixelated.

The MeMO Pad uses the same resolution as the smaller, 7-inch Google Nexus 7, however 10.1-inches is a little too far to stretch this resolution over these days.

It also lacks an oleophobic coating, something that reduces the appearance of fingerprint smudges – an unavoidable by-product of touch-screen technology. After using the MeMO Pad for only a few minutes, the tablet becomes covered in mushed fingerprints, which are quite visible in strong light. An oleophobic finish is more-or-less taken for granted in more expensive tablets, but take it away and you’ll certainly miss it.

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews - Interface, Performance

Asus MeMO Pad Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Asus MeMO Pad Smart runs on Android's 4.1 Jelly Bean OS with minor Asus adjustments. These are largely based around the presence of additional apps though, rather than dramatic changes to the user interface.

Asus has supplied a few visual tweaks though. The icons in the navigation bar have been redesigned, and as standard the Asus MeMO Pad Smart has a snazzy Asus weather and clock widget on its lead home screen. The only functional change to the way you use the tablet is a navigation bar lock switch right in the middle of the navigation bar. This disables the other navigation bar buttons, so you don’t accidentally press them.

Asus has also inserted its own virtual keyboard. It’s more colourful than the standard one, and has a slightly different layout that packs more keys on to the screen, but is it a winner? Not particularly – it lacks Swype-style gesture input and any dynamic word completion. However, when it’s so easy to switch to another keyboard, and the standard Android one comes pre-installed, it barely matters.

We like Asus’s approach to Android customisation in the MeMO Pad Smart. The light nature of the tweaks, and the use of the speedy Jelly Bean version of Android means the tablet runs at a fair old lick. It uses a quad-core Tegra T33 1.2GHz chip, the same found in the Google Nexus 7. It’s slower than the quad-core Krait processors found in many of 2013’s phones and tablets, but the difference will only be particularly noticeable in high-end games.



For example, while Real Racing 3 plays just fine on the MeMO Pad Smart 10, the frame rate appeared lower than the same game running on an iPad 4 - despite the iPad's increased screen resolution. That said, while we have complained about the limited screen resolution here, it is precisely this that should keep high-end games running fairly well for a while to come. Rendering more pixels requires more power.

Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews and Specifications. As with its phones and TVs, Sony has lagged behind its arch-rival Samsung in the tablet market in recent years. The Sony Xperia Tablet S is out to change all that, but does it make the necessary moves? With a quad-core processor, slim profile and up-to-date software, it certainly sounds the ticket. However, Sony's typically 'premium' pricing structure means it's not much of a bargain – especially when compared to the likes of the Google Nexus 10.

Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews – Design

Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Released at the back end of 2011 the original Sony Tablet S turned heads because of its folio-like design, which essentially aped a book with a folded-over cover. It gave the tablet a chunky body but interesting, and pretty good, ergonomics (especially when it was held in portrait mode). The Xperia Tablet S continues with this design cue, although it's clearly been put on a diet in order to slim down the tablet's overall profile and shed the chunk factor of its predecessor.



As with the original Tablet S, we can imagine that many people’s first reaction will be to ask why Sony has stuck with the “flipped over book” design. However, in-use this unusual shape does actually make the Xperia Tablet S much more comfy to hold single-handed – especially in portrait orientation. The extra thickness of the fold is a bonus in this one-handed scenario, and the plastic grip is textured with raised dots to increase grip. In other words, what might initially seem like Sony showing off is revealed to be a surprisingly practical design choice.



The Sony Xperia Tablet S is doubly handy as a single-hander tablet because it’s a little smaller and lighter than much of the competition too. Where many “full-size” tablets have 10.1-inch screens, the Tablet S has a 9.4-inch screen. A chunky inch-wide bezel surrounds the whole screen so it’s hardly tiddly, however it is smaller than most 10-inch tablets. And at 570g it's also lighter.



However, Sony has already one-upped this model with the Sony Xperia Tablet Z, which has a larger screen and lighter 495g body. This means that the Xperia Tablet S is no longer Sony’s top-end model. And at around £350, it’s hardly selling for pocket change either. Until it gets a price drop, it’s stuck in an awkward middle-ground between the much cheaper 7/8-inch tablets like the Google Nexus 7 and iPad mini and the more impressive – and not that much more expensive – Sony Xperia Tablet Z.

Aside from its lax efforts to reduce bezel size, the design of the Xperia Tablet S feels fairly up-to-date. Build quality isn't bad either; apart from the plastic of the flip-over folio part, the Sony Xperia Tablet S’s rear is made of smooth, curved aluminium, bearing the same anodised finish as the iPad with Retina display.



The Sony Xperia Tablet S makes good use of the extra girth of the plastic part, cramming-in a full-size SD memory card slot. Micro SD slots are a sought-after commodity in high-end Android tablets and phones, but full-size slots are rarer than budget beef burgers actually made of beef. This should prove an especially big draw to photographers – digital cameras are one of the few electronic device types that continue to use a full-size memory card.



You’ll find the SD card slot on the Sony Xperia Tablet S’s left edge, under a plastic flap next to the 3.5mm headphone jack. The plastic alcoves that sit under the grip are where you’ll find all the tablet’s buttons and sockets, bar the proprietary docking port on the bottom. On the right edge there’s the volume rocker and power button – the only buttons on this tablet.

We reviewed the non-3G edition of the tablet, and while there is a 3G edition we doubt whether we'll see this released widely in the UK.



On either side of the bottom rear edge you'll find small inset speakers, giving some degree of stereo separation while you’re watching a movie in landscape orientation. 

Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews – Screen

Although it has a thoroughly renovated design, the Sony Xperia Tablet S screen is not exactly cutting-edge. In fact, it feels like it belongs in a tablet from 2011 if we’re honest.

With 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution and dull-looking colours, it’s far removed from what the best tablets out there offer. Although 9.4-inches across, it only offers the same number of pixels as the Google Nexus 7, which has a 7-inch screen and costs half the price.



Some criticism of tablet screens boils down to whining about technology that doesn’t really affect real-world performance, however in the case of the Sony Xperia Tablet S, the problems are real. For a £300-plus tablet, it’s disappointingly pixelated and looks glum. Put it next to a Retina iPad and the Sony Xperia Tablet S just looks poor.

On a more basic level, the screen quality remains acceptable, though. The Sony Xperia Tablet S uses an IPS panel too, which provides good viewing angles. 

Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews - Software and Performance

The Sony Tablet S runs a modified version of Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. This is a fairly aged version of Android, with most new devices now running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.



The most important omissions in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich are the Project Butter speed optimisations that were introduced with version 4.1 Jelly Bean. These tweaks have enabled much cleverer use of an Android device’s CPU, to grease the cogs of the Android system. Without them, the Sony Xperia Tablet S can feel a little bit sluggish, despite having a quad-core Tegra 3 processor.

The Sony Xperia Tablet S uses the 1.3GHz T30L variant of the Tegra 3 chipset, the same chip that's also used in some lower-end devices including the Google Nexus 7. Given its price, it’s a little disappointing not to see the T30 or T33 variants here, which offer a superior GPU and higher clock speeds. With Tegra 4 already unveiled, and Qualcomm Krait chipsets outperforming Tegra 3, the chipset used here is already starting to smell a little musty.



However, in terms of real-world performance what the Sony Xperia Tablet S really needs is an update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. That said, performance is perfectly fine – just so long as you can stomach the odd juddery transition or two.

Sony has not messed with the basic look and feel of Android too much in its custom UI. Rather, it has piled a bunch of features on top.

You can see a bunch of them from a quick glance at the Sony Xperia Tablet S’s home screen. Notice the extra shortcut icons at the top of the screen, talking you to the core tablet features of the browser, email app, camera and Settings menu. There’s a also the clever Guest mode, accessed using the shortcut near the apps drawer link at the top-right of the screen.



Guest Mode lets you set up additional home screen layouts for, most likely, other members of the family. You can limit the applications these custom “logins” have access to as well, making it the perfect way to restrict what your kids can get their hands on.

What true tablet fans will be more interested in, though, are the features accessed through the navigation bar. In the centre are two icons that point you towards Sony-specific features.



Sony Xperia Tablet S Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Sony Xperia Tablet S offers a special widget loader that lets you run widgets as movable overlays, rather than things stapled to your home screen. This, for example, lets you run a calculator app while playing a game – the end result is much more involved multi-tasking than you get with standard Android.

The other nav bar button is the remote control app, which lets the Sony Xperia Tablet S function as a universal remote control. This is much more than just a piece of software too, as the tablet features a built-in IR blaster – something that most other tablets on the market don't have.

Sony’s interface with which you programme the various virtual remote functions isn’t quite as high-fidelity as that of the Logitech Harmony remote line, but it does support a wide array of devices, including thousands of devices that are not made by Sony.


Aside from simply replacing your remotes with the Sony Xperia Tablet S, you can also programme in macro functions, which string together several commands into a single button click.

Other optimisations of Sony’s are largely about hooking you into Sony services: Sony Video Unlimited is a movie store that lets you rent and buy digital movies; Music Unlimited is a Spotify-like streaming service; and Reader by Sony is an ebook reader that also handily nudges you towards buying books from the Sony Reader store.

Sony does offer a few appy extras that aren’t just about trying to sell you things, though. Socialife is a Sony-made social network aggregator that bungs you Facebook and Twitter updates into a single, tablet-friendly feed. It also has a tab for RSS feeds, making it a sort of one-stop-shop for your daily consumption of digital detritus. It’s functional but doesn’t offer much you couldn’t get from a third-party app.

Source : TrustedReview