Sony Xperia S Features and Review

Smartphones these days all come with more than passable cameras on board and some of the more high-end devices feature lenses that can outdo those found on traditional ‘compact cameras’, causing discerning consumers to ditch their digital snappers in favour of a phone.

As for the handset, the Sony Xperia S is definitely a desirable phone. It has a great, sleek look and we love the little design flourishes Sony has decided to give the Xperia S. The most obvious of these is the see-through strip near the bottom of the device. This is then met with an off-colour lip. Sony has said that this design will be a familiar one from now on, and it will continue in the future and be used on other upcoming phones.

Sony Xperia S: Features

The new Sony handset will not arrive with Android Ice Cream Sandwich on board, but Sony says there'll be an upgrade in the near future. Instead early adopters will be greeted with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. As with other phones in the Xperia range, like the Sony Xperia Arc, the UI is very Android centric. There's no skin like on HTC and Samsung Android phones and Sony Ericsson has long ditched the Timescape UI, which was a good idea in theory but didn't really work in practice.

Sony Ericsson cameras have always been an area of the phone's that we can be positive about and the Sony Xperia S is no different, bringing a 12-megapixel offering which also offers some neat shot-to-shot technology which almost eliminates the shutter-lag between taking pictures. In terms of video, the device will shoot 1080p, a la the iPhone 4S. There's also an Exmor sensor on-board. Very fancy.

There's also a boon for gamers as the device is PlayStation certified, meaning you'll be able to access the library of old PlayStation titles just like Xperia Play owners. It'll also focus its attentions on the Sony Entertainment Network with apps like Music Unlimited and Movies Unlimited. It'll also be able to throw content to your TV set in the same way AirPlay does on iOS devices.

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Our Apple iPad Review

Apple have always been trend setters – a lot of their products’ names become synonymous with the class of gadget they are a part of. Many people would say ‘iPod’ when they really mean an MP3 player. The iPad has all the potential to become equally synonymous to tablets and finally break them out of their niche market status. The iPad is a midway device – between a smartphone and a laptop (between an iPhone and a MacBook if Steve Jobs has his way).

As much as I liked Apple’s latest gizmo, I just couldn’t find a way to consistently use it. Sure, the iPad was more portable than a notebook, but it doesn’t run OS X. Instead, Apple decided that the iPad should run on iOS, the mobile version of its desktop operating system.

And therein lies my problem. OS X applications don't run on iOS. That means I can't run Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop, the two tools that I need to stay productive. There are applications in Apple’s App Store that serve as quasi-substitutes, but paying more for a program that I already have (with fewer functions) isn’t what I need.

Key features

• Magnificent 9.7” capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels; oleophobic coating
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity
• Optional 3G connectivity (data only) with A-GPS
• 1 GHz Apple A4 CPU ensures great performance
• iPhone OS 3.2
• 16/32/64 GB of onboard storage
• GPS receiver
• Weight of 680 grams (730 grams for the 3G version)
• Very slim 13.4mm waistline
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 10 hours battery life and 1 month of stand-by
• Accelerometer and compass
• Compatible with every iPhone app without any modifications
• The cheapest version costs less than an unlocked iPhone
• iBook application
• The keyboard dock (purchased separately) easily converts the iPad into a nettop
• Handles a variety of formats – Microsoft Office files, Apple iWork files, PDF, RAW image files
• 720p video playback

Main disadvantages

• It’s not a computer but a big iPod Touch
• No multitasking yet (OS 4.0 will add multitasking)
• iPhone apps either leave a lot of unused screen real estate or look pretty bad when uspcaled
• No Flash support for the web browser
• No camera
• No standard USB port (you can get USB connectivity with an accessory but you need to pay extra)
• iTunes required for uploading content
• No kickstand – it cannot stand on a table without a dock or stand
• It’s pretty easy to drop
• No exchangeable battery
• Typing is quite uncomfortable (you can get the keyboard dock for less than some stands and it’s more useful)
• 3G model uses micro-SIM, instead of a regular SIM for the 3G models
• No memory card slot (you can get the camera connection kit, which doubles as an SD card reader)
• Mono loudspeaker
• Maximum TV-out resolution is 1024×768, which makes 720p video decoding pointless

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2012 Toshiba AT200 Tablet Review

Another day at IFA 2011, and yet another launch of a brand-new Android tablet. This time it’s Toshiba’s turn with the AT200: a 10.1in tablet that can (currently, at least) lay claim to being the lightest 10.1in tablet in the world.

While it gets harder and harder for manufacturers to differentiate their slates from the identikit masses, Toshiba’s done a great job of giving its AT200 a little personality of its own. The unfussy design looks plain yet elegant; a strip of black running along the tablet’s flat 7.7mm edges, arresting only when it reaches the ports on the tablet’s flank.

Toshiba says this is the thinnest 10.1-inch tablet ever, which, if you think about it, is too specific to mean anything at all. Still, the AT200 is indeed impressively slender, and this lack of girth is probably its strongest feature.

Under the hood, the tablet offers drool-worthy features that are also found in many high-end competitors. While the AT200 Excite still uses Honeycomb (Android 2.3), the 1.2 GHz dual-core processors can keep everything smooth and snappy. As tablets tend to be app-heavy, the 1GB of RAM can ensure smooth multi-tasking tasks and in terms of storage capacity, the phone comes with two different versions, 16GB and 32GB of internal storage. The tablet also offers a microSD slot, which can significantly increase the potential storage. Display-wise, it comes with a 10.1” LED-backlit LCD display with 1280 x 800 pixels resolution and the support for 16MB of colors simply make the AT200 stunning. The tablet comes with a pair of modest shooters, a 5Mp rear-facing and 2Mp front-facing cameras. At this moment, we may not know what future holds for the tablet, but there’s definitely some good things coming it way.

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