Official Sony Tablet S Owner's Thread

With the new Tablet device being around for some time, I think there are lots of new questions and things to discover on the Android platform.

It's not a classic notebook, but I already got my Logitech blutooth mouse running on it without any drivers, and there is an official keyboard on sale, so it can be used like one for basic operations on the way pretty well.

I think this thread will be really useful to all owners, as there isn't any other informative, comprehensive place for this device on the web.



A beautiful and really able device. It's nice to hold. Best thing so far is the display: No(!) bleeding, excellent colours from every point of view, high resolution and modern 16:10 format. Also, overall build quality is better than mentioned in reviews. But the battery lasts about 6 hours use only, disappointing.

 

Question about the Tablet S--can I simultaneously run a Kindle app and a Pandora app? With iOS devices like my iPod Touch, I can run one-third-party app and one of the embedded apps (for example, Kindle plus iTunes), but I can't simultaneously do two third-party apps. Since I rely on Pandora more than iTunes for music, this is a big problem.

 

another question: can i use the bluetooth keyboard for S on a bluetooth-equipped PC?

 

I ran a third-party media player (one that can directly access the SD card) in the background and surfed the internet and used other downloaded apps (Twitter, Facebook) while listening. So I think this will work.

But I'm not familiar with all the Android multi tasking habits at this point... first I learned that one can't close apps. Feels strange.

 

One detail that really drives me mad is with the Sony-adapted android browser... when loading a page, it keeps all the links on it disabled until the page is completely loaded. They remain black and I can't click them until the loading bar disappears. Then they all turn blue. So when browsing through sites I have to wait for any advert to load even if I already see the link I want to take immediately. What a strange disimprovement over any other browser around. Can someone help me here?

(I use alternative browsers like Opera, but the standard browser I'm talking has full JScript and Flash ability, which is a true bliss.)

 

Yeah, I've never used Android so I have no idea how it works. If you wouldn't mind, would you try downloading the Kindle and Pandora apps and see if you can read while you listen? Pandora is free for 40 hours/month (with commercial interruptions; an unlimited no-ads subscription is available, which I have), and there are plenty of free books on Kindle (including old classics where the copyright has expired, like Bram Stoker's Dracula, Treasure Island, etc).

Practicality is telling me I don't "need" a Tablet S, since I have a Kindle, an iPod Touch, and a laptop, but I'm increasingly infatuated with the idea. If my bonus turns out to be comfortable this year, I'm debating pulling the trigger.

 

I was in about the same boat as you, Mitlov. Didn't (and kind of still don't) understand the primary benefit of a tablet, though the S always looked kind of nice to me.

Best Buy had a post-Christmas deal on the S where you could buy the unit for $550 plus get the leather case and dock for $15 each. I broke down and bought it, partly because of the good deal and also because I needed about $500 more in purchases to maintain my Silver membership with them.

Not a bad gadget, though I'm still very new to Android (WP7 user here). I read somewhere that there's a way to essentially use the SD card as external storage. Does anyone know how to do that?

 

Yeah, with players like Meridian you can access the sd card folders/files directly. No big deal. Only thing that disturbs is the auto start of "file transfer" when sd card is injected. Can't turn it off. It's silly. Why to make this restriction in the first place? Seems like "You can't use the sd card reasonably, better buy device with bigger internal storage" policy.

But anyway, I installed an FTP client app (FtpCafe) and now can access all the myriads of files on my network HDD.