Sony Xperia Tablet Z
The new toy! The Tablet Z is a 10" Android, I have the
Wi-fi only version. There are plenty of reviews published ranging from 'good'
to 'excellent', this is just a personal impression.
Yes, it's pretty: awesome black, thinner and lighter than an
iPad, easy to hold one handed. I bought the Sony docking cradle with it,
recharge is slow - overnight is recommended. It will recharge while switched off. There are plenty of cases on
Amazon for it, I got
this one, a bargain at £10.
It is uniquely for a Tablet waterproof as in "drop in a
bucket for half an hour", or in my case "coffee spill alert!" On
the minus side, that means the ports are sealed by fiddly plastic bits that I
hope Sony have tested for durability. The cradle uses contact points to
connect. The glass front is a finger grease trap, but this doesn't
interfere with vision. The screen has slightly larger pixels than the iPad but
not so much as to be noticeable.
The manual... no manual, just a minimal start up guide. Wifi
connected easily to my router, and the Support App links to online help pages.
I've never used Android before, this implementation is the
reviews say fairly standard. I soon discovered how to delete the free crap and
load up some goodies. It comes with 16GB of memory of which I presently have
9GB free.
Apps synchronised easily with their desktop PC counterparts.
Google Maps said it needed a permission switched on to use
GPS and that took a while to find:
Settings/Personal/Location services/ON and GPS on
and
Settings/Accounts/Google/Location Settings/ON
Once activated however, fine. I now know where I am if I
step into the garden.
I've only caused the OS to get confused once, losing the
Wifi connection, and a reboot cured that.
A built in universal IR remote was easy to set up. It does
its best to be quick to use, and for simple changes it is.
Apps?
Skype.
"Better picture" my first video contact reported, "sound keeps
fading though." The microphone is on the top edge, I assume a compromise
for the front and back cameras, so tilting affects it. Sony have promised a
control with the next update.
Lumiya, a gallant
attempt at a Second Life Android Viewer, is a dancing bear. It took several
minutes for Ori to work out where she was standing! For checking messages,
fine.
Office Suite Pro
is an Office substitute.
The Google keyboard is
for me simpler than the supplied SonyXperia offering. I tried a Bluetooth keyboard but it keeps disconnecting the WiFi.
SynchMe is a
simple folder synchroniser.
