Vaio P Tablet review

[Ross]

I posted this in another forum and thought people here might like to see it too:

I'd sum up the P Tablet as having a lot in common with Sony's Rolly - it's a gorgeous piece of equipment that looks stunning, feels very well made but suffers from practicality issues. (The Rolly made a great portable bluetooth speaker, but a terrible MP3 player due to lack of a display and the units bulk.)

The P looks fantastic out of the box - the clamshell feels solid, it has a decent heft to it (without being overly heavy) and the hinge is nice and snappy. It certainly feels like a high-end piece of kit.

In terms of spec, it's both fantastic and terrible at the same time. For £500 you get 2 identical X-Black displays, which are crisp and vibrant. I have found myself stabbing at the screens on occasion because it didn't register my action though - this can get a bit frustrating and I'm not sure if it's the App, Android or the unit at fault (or me for missing a prompt or something) but I've never had this trouble on the iPad or iPhone.

The custom Android interface works very well, though it threw my flatmate when he used it as a lot of the options aren't where you'd expect to find them - for an Android novice like me, it was fairly straightforward, but I can understand why it would be frustrating for people who are used to a more "standard" interface. The menus and animations are lovely though, Sony really paid attention here.

The storage is a major letdown - 2Gb of internal memory is extremely weak, though it is bolstered by a 2GB MicroSDHC card installed next to the battery (you have to turn the unit off and remove the battery to access the slot). Since Amazon sell the 32Gb card for £25 it isn't a deal-breaker, but for the money it really seems pretty tight to provide such a low end card.

Another piece of miserly cost cutting is the lack of a cable - I can't believe that Sony couldn't be bothered to throw in a Micro B USB cable that costs pennies - in order to transfer files to the device I had to install an FTP program and move things across the WiFi. I don't expect to have to puzzle my way around file transfer with a £500 piece of hardware.

In terms of usability, the P has a couple of drawbacks - the gap between the screens really grates after a while. Websites do look crisp, and Flash is fully supported of course, but a huge black bar running through the middle makes it a painful experience for the most part, especially YouTube where videos don't quite fit the top screen. If we get a player in the App store that can display video in the top screen and related videos in the bottom, then it would be hugely beneficial to this system. Shame Sony didn't think of it for launch.

Most apps don't support dual screen, so they're either relegated to the top screen, or if possible, Sony's Android will allow you to stretch an app across both screens. I found certain apps (eBay in particular) crashed when stretching, so it's actually easier to use the site than the app in some cases (Paypal, Amazon etc).

Where the system does shine is eBooks. Holding the device like a proper book and reading pages across both screens is very cool. The camera is also excellent at 5 Megapixels - images are very sharp.

The onscreen keyboard is excellent. I'm not used to Android, but one feature I've come to love is predictive text - it's much more intuitive to have a selection across the keyboard when compared to Apple's pop-up boxes on the text itself.

Sound through the single mono speaker is woefully tinny, to the point of being useless. Headphones are the only way to go here - I use the Sony Bluetooth DR-BT50 series myself, and they're awesome.

Video playback is okay - again, it's relegated to the top screen in all apps, including Crunchyroll, but if you use the provided player it will turn off the bottom screen (unless tapped) whereby it places the controls there. This is a really nice feature. However, to play anime/subtitled films I've been using Dice Player, which can play 720p with subtitles with minimal slowdown/artefacts, but it does leave the bottom screen on, draining power.

Speaking of, the unit claims to have a 7 hour battery life (which I haven't tested) but I can confirm it takes sodding ages to charge (7.5 hours according to the Sony site). Okay, you can charge it overnight, but it still seems overly long when compared to the iPad 2. On the plus side, the battery can be swapped out, which gives the unit some extra longevity. More money for Sony too of course : )

The system comes with Crash Bandicoot installed. The PS1 emulator is excellent - the game plays on the top screen (and looks great) while the bulk of the controls are on the bottom screen, with only the L1/L2/R1/R2 buttons on the top screen. There isn't much of a selection on the Android store, though both Wipeout and Everbody's Golf 2 are probably worth picking up (£3.99 each).

I picked the tablet up because I like unusual kit, especially Sony's. I have a Vaio TZ, Vaio P (recently picked up second hand in Japan) and the aforementioned Sony Rolly (US version) and Sony DR-BT50 headphones. The P Tablet maintains a baffling Sony tradition of having top notch build quality, quicky, innovative features and their occasional baffling functional/design quirks.

I really can't see it troubling the standard tablet market. It's poorly supported in the Android store, has a niche user-base at best and the dual-screens desperately need some support in order to be truly practical, and given Sony's terrible track record of supporting their own products, this seems unlikely.

It will, however, turn heads. Everyone who has played with mine has sat there with a huge grin on their faces and would like to own one. I have a feeling that the practical limitations will quickly overshadow the initial delight for most people, but if money is no object and portability is key, then this is a gorgeous, fun device that posers and techno-geeks will coo over.

[rjessop]

Nice. You mentioned some software you've already got, but what are you planning to use it for?

[Ross]

Initially I was looking at it as an iPad replacement, but that'll never happen as the P is a pain in the ass for magazines, comics and general browsing due to the annoying spacing between the screens. Then I was going to use it as a system for general work usage out of the office, but the Vaio P is better for that.

So now it's just a toy to mess about wiith, and a way to familiarise myself with Android in preparation for a couple of Apps I might write next year.