But this oddly shaped device feels flimsy, and comes nowhere near the iPad for fit and finish. It doesn’t even measure up to my favorite non-iPad, Samsung Corp.’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. Yet until recently, Sony was selling the Tablet S at $499, the same price as the iPad.
This week, the company came to its senses and announced a $100 price cut, to $399. It won’t be enough. The only tablet to pose a threat to the iPad, Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire, costs just $200. With its better video screen and other extras, the Tablet S is worth more, but not $200 more.
Give Sony engineers credit for trying to think different, as Apple would say. They gave the Tablet S a unique, playful shape reminiscent of a magazine folded over on itself. This makes one edge of the device significantly thicker than the other, but in exchange you get a tablet that feels quite comfortable in the hand.
And yet, the Tablet S also feels cheap. Sony used low-grade plastic for the case, especially the edges. The plastic door that protects a USB port and SD memory card slot feels like it was engineered by Mattel. Even failed tablets like the BlackBerry PlayBook and Hewlett-Packard TouchPad felt more solid and better built.
Still, when put to work, the Tablet S is a solid performer, running Android apps as crisply as any device on the market. The video screen is sharp, with rich color reproduction, and the five-megapixel rear camera takes better-looking pictures than an iPad 2. Battery life is respectable, too. Even after streaming a couple of full-length movies over Wi-Fi, I still had about 25 percent of battery life left. That makes it an adequate tablet for cross-country air travel.
Like other makers of Android devices, Sony has tweaked the software a bit. They’ve put in a smart little “favorites’’ icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Tapping it provides instant access to bookmarked Web pages, favorite photos and videos, or the songs you like best.
