Sony Tablet P review

Yes, it's an odd-looking thing. Yes, it's difficult to know who would buy it. But yes, the Sony Tablet P is a rather interesting device with dual 5-inch touchscreens that fold together for transport.
Launched alongside the bigger Sony Tablet S at IFA 2011, the 372g tablet is amazingly light despite its rather 'massive glasses case' appearance.
Formerly known as the Sony S2, the $599 tablet ships with Android 3.1, although it will be upgradeable to Android 3.2. Wi-Fi and 3G models will ship with Android 3.2.

You can check out our hands on video of the Sony Tablet P below:

There will be plenty of multimedia capabilities and the tablet will work to share media with DLNA-certified devices.
So let's look at the exterior first. Like the Tablet S, the Tablet P features front and rear cameras for still and video, while there's USB and SD card support.


The hinge is rather unsightly, though the effect is far better when the device is flat. Folded, the footprint is 79 x 180 x 26mm. Easily pocketable.


Now let's open the thing up - there are the dual 5-inch displays running Android 3.1. Now, the main thing to note is that, unless apps have been specially written to take advantage of the dual displays, things appear stretched over the two screens
In many general apps such as web browsing, things are spread across the dual displays. This appears odd to begin with, not least because there's a whacking great black bar across your line of vision.

Each of the displays has quite a large bezel, but there are no controls there.

Here's the web browser in action across the dual-displays.

The main app menu display.

Where apps have been specially written, things are different. As Sony says: "Watch video on one screen while using the other to control it, or check email while using the other screen as a keyboard."
Here Tablet P is running PlayStation One games - as you can see the controls are on one display, while the gameplay takes place on another, Nintendo DS-style.

Here's the email app in full flow. However, it does seem that some apps don't take full advantage of the second display....

Mail is OK, but look at the next couple of examples. Things just don't seem to have been adapted for the dual-screen setup.


Bookmarks...

Finally, here's the tablet in portrait. You might think this is silly, but Sony rightly points out that this could be good for book reading - the Sony Reader Store is available on the device.
Whatever you feel about it, the Sony Tablet P is certainly an innovative device, though we're yet to be convinced about who exactly will buy it.