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Sony Tablet: Android and Nvidia go together
Sony's adoption of Nvidia silicon for its upcoming Android tablets makes the graphics chip supplier--at least for the time being--the hardware standard for the Android tablet world, as a Sony vice president articulated in an interview in Japan on Wednesday.
"For the tablet platform, we're standardizing on Android 3.0 and Nvidia's Tegra 2," said Kunimasa Suzuki, a senior vice president at Sony in an interview with Japan-based Impress Watch.
Suzuki's comments come after Sony unveiled two Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" tablets on Tuesday. One has a 9.4-inch (1280-by-800) display and front and rear cameras, while the other is "foldable" and uses two 5.5-inch displays. Both tablets, due in the fall, will run Android 3.0 on top of Nvidia's Tegra 2 processor.
Sony 'S1' tablet: Like Motorola's and Toshiba's Honeycomb tablets, it uses an Nvidia Tegra chip.
Sony's tablet, in this respect, will mimic Motorola and its Xoom tablet, which also sports Honeycomb and an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor. And others, including Toshiba, have similar Honeycomb-Nvidia tablets on the way.
Will Strauss, president of wireless chip market research firm Forward Concepts, said that companies like Sony and Motorola are using Nvidia because of the strength of its graphics performance. "In talking to people [in the industry] that's what I'm hearing," Strauss said.
But Google's endorsement of--and standardization on--Nvidia's Tegra technology early on before Android 3.0 was finalized for the Motorola Xoom has probably been the biggest factor in making Nvidia's chip, practically speaking, the only choice right now for Honeycomb.
That said, Nvidia is not Intel. And this is not the PC industry where there is one dominant player. Large chip companies like Texas Instruments and Qualcomm also make processors based on the ARM architecture. Those chips can--and do--run Android. And add LG Electronics, which this week signed a new license agreement with ARM, to that list too.
"In some cases, it's I'm Catholic and they're Catholic so let's use that," Strauss said. "Some people would prefer to use [Texas Instruments'] OMAP 4 processor because they like that graphics better," he added.
Until that happens on a commercial Honeycomb tablet, however, Nvidia is the de-facto standard. So much so that Sony's Suzuki is aware that the adoption of Android and Nvidia threatens the perception of a "uniquely Sony" tablet, he said in the interview.
He spelled four areas where the Japanese company intends to distinguish itself, including "optimizing" the combination of hardware and software and focusing on "networked entertainment" in which Sony tablets can communicate with a variety of consumer devices.
Sony Tablet S Review: It’s Good to See You Again, Sony
Shaped like a folded over magazine, Sony's Tablet S is maybe the weirdest looking tablet we've ever seen. But it's also the most comfortable.
Why It Matters
It's Sony. After a rut, glimmers of the old Sony are peaking through. That crazy PlayStation display. 3DTV goggles! This is Sony's first real tablet (along with this thing!), and they've designed something that's worthy of the Sony we love, with a unique and nearly genius form-factor, saving us from the multitudes of same same same Android tablets.
Hardware
Straight on, it looks just like any other tablet. But check it out from the side—oh man, what the hell is that? It resembles a paperback that's been folded back at its binding, creating a thick side and a thin side. I thought it was dumb, for a minute. The heaviest components are moved into the thick part, which shifts the weight toward the strongest part of your hand. The Tablet S is 5 grams lighter than the iPad 2, but this optimized weight-distribution makes it feel much lighter and more comfortable to hold with one hand. And the slope means it's got better lap and tabletop viewing angles—no smart cover required.
The 9.4-inch, 1280x800 screen is quite good—less reflective than most—but it's a bit dim. And soft. It got seriously scratched during a totally routine photo shoot—we've put tablets through far worse without a nick. The 5MP rear camera is surprisingly decent. Otherwise, the guts are clones of basically every other Android tablet. But! It's got a full-sized SD card reader.
The build quality doesn't seem up to snuff. It's extremely plasticky. It compresses too easily. Parts wiggle a little that probably shouldn't. Even the screen has a lot of flex to it if you give it a little pressure. They used some sort of thinner, cheaper glass to save on weight, but it felt like if you dropped this thing it would smash into a million pieces. This is definitely not Gorilla Glass, and it's obvious that it should be. Battery life was excellent—I got days and days out of a charge with moderate use. No complaints there.
Software
Sony packs a lot of custom software on top of Honeycomb. If you have a DLNA compliant TV (or other device) you can "throw" your media to it. That means wirelessly streaming video from your tablet to your TV (or music to your DLNA stereo). Unfortunately you can't mirror the tablet's screen on your TV for gaming. The IR port on the Tablet S allows you to use it as a real universal remote control. Setup was easy and I was pretty impressed with how well that worked.
They aren't all winners, however. They have tweaked out the web browser with Quick View, which should make your pages load faster (likely because of server-side compression), but this was hard to test as the Tablet S kept loading mobile versions of sites. Sony put a skin over the app drawer that made my eyes want to commit suicide. It's bright white, and when scrolling it somehow scrambles my brainwaves and makes everything much harder to read. It's pretty awful. They also put in a Favorites app, which I guess is supposed to be a more user-friendly homescreen, but it isn't really. I was really excited about playing some old PS One games on this thing, but man, those games really weren't built for touchscreen approximations of a controller. Poor Crash Bandicoot died many needless, horrible deaths.
Performance
Speed on the Tab S is a mixed-bag. When you first boot it up it's easily among the fastest of the Android tablets. Scrolling is smooth, and even complex HD games play very nicely. But once it's been running for a while and you've opened a bunch of applications, things really start slowing down. There were also some strange anomalies, where email wouldn't always sync in realtime. Sometimes the screen would rotate the wrong way, or take a while to catch up. Again, most of this seems to be more Honeycomb related.
Last Word
It's the first Android tablet to feel like it was designed. But whoever built it couldn't quite live up to the dreams of its designers, to the dream of Sony. It's still the best Android tablet since the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, though depending on where you're coming from, that either says a lot or very, very little. It's definitely too expensive given its build-quality (or lack thereof), but once it comes down in price, it'll definitely be worth checking out. And it's so nice to see you again, Sony, if only for a second.
It has got to be sony for its wide variety of products though it may not be the best..
Originally Posted by moovybuf
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEBoLUONm-s"]First Look: Sony 84-inch 4K TV - YouTube[/ame]
sony's new internet player with google tv vangiyirunnu..bt ippol idakku english movie still vannu kondirikunnu...vedio anenkil pause akum...fk polulla sites nokkumpol anenkil 2 second kondu stills pokunnumund...vere arkkenkilum same prasnam undo?
Oduvil sony um dual sim phone irakkiyallo, xperia tipo dual
Sony launches 4K 84'' TV for just 13 lakh Rs
Enthu cool title...
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