The New Sony Android Tablet S

• Ergonomic – thicker on the top, slender at the bottom – designed to fit comfortably in your hand.  Is also useful for typing when set on a table.
  

  Built-in IR controls allow you to control your TV, DVR, Receiver, and more!

• Built-in Universal IR Remote Control your devices – has a great remote control app that gives you the ability to control your TV, Blue-Ray player, receiver, and more
• 1 GB RAM memory – you can open many apps at once without loss of processing power
• 1 GHz Dual core processor
• 16 or 32 GB memory storage
• Full size SD card expansion for additional memory – slick!
• WiFi – b/g/n connection
• Android 3.1 – Honeycomb
• Dual cameras – front and 5 mp rear cameras
• 9.4″ (1280×800) touch panel
• Mini USB port
• Supports Flash
• PS3 certified and preloaded with PS3 games
• DLNA compliant – flick your pics and video to your DLNA compliant TV (pretty cool!)

Pros:

• Love the menu button within each app on the Android – iPad doesn’t have this
• Love the back button available in each app – iPad doesn’t have this
• The only Android Honeycomb tablet with built-in IR Universal Remote Control feature is great – easy to set up and use.  Temporarily misplaced your TV remote?  No longer an issue, use your  Tablet S… or play dueling remotes with your husband!
• Playing the included PS3 titles are fun – great graphics  (Crash Bandicoot and Pinball Heroes)
• Easy to hold – the Tablet S is slightly triangular in form so that it is easier to hold in your hand for longer time periods
  

  This is the iMediaShare app on Tablet S that I used to "flick" pictures, videos, and other online programming up to my TV.

• The full-size SD card slot is great – you can expand memory without having to buy a larger GB Tablet S
• Great graphics with nice blacks for contrast

Cons:

• The Power button is on the side – I have to search for it every time to turn on the tablet
• Not a lot of availability yet for cases
• The AC Adapter is not a standard one, so you must have the Sony Tablet S adapter to charge your Tablet S – it is not compatible with your current chargers
• The WiFi capability is not strong and often drops.  My other devices do a much better job at keeping the signal in the same room.  This is a major concern.

Flick Your Pictures to Your TV?

You may have heard this term, “flicking your pictures to your TV”  thrown around, but what exactly does it mean?  The term “flick” means you can send the pictures, music, or video to your TV or other DNLA compliant device.  OK, but what does DNLA mean and how do you know if your device is DLNA compliant?  DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance.  According to Wikipedia,

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a non-profit collaborative trade organization established by Sony in June 2003, that is responsible for defining interoperability guidelines to enable sharing of digital media between consumer devices such as computers, printers, cameras, cell phones, and other multimedia devices. These guidelines are built upon existing public standards, but the guidelines themselves are private (available for a fee). These guidelines specify a set of restricted ways of using the standards in order to achieve interoperability.^[3]

DLNA allows for devices with the DLNA protocol built-in to talk to discover, manage media, and control one another.  Using software programs or apps, you can pick a video, song, or picture…look at your list of DLNA compliant devices, and “flick” the media to the device.  All DLNA devices need to be connected to your network to work together.

Any device I buy I make sure they are DLNA compliant.  All of our TV’s have DLNA, along with our new receiver, Ditto Media Storage drive, etc.  This way I can show pictures or play music from my computer or phone on any of our TV’s.  Sony preloaded an app called iMediaShare.  I “flicked” up some great “pretty” pictures on our TV in our family room during a party – a scene of a castle, a sunset, etc.  It was easy to do and really added to our atmosphere. This weekend, we had some friends over and we played the Kinect Black-eyed Peas Experience (what a fun game!).  I shot photos and videos of everyone dancing and flicked them up to the TV, they loved it!  I’ve never been able to display pictures so fast on a TV before.  Love it.

PS3 Games…on a Tablet?

During the Techlicious Blogger event, I got the chance to play the Pinball Heroes game on the tablet with a PS3 controller.  That was really fun.  To connect your PS3 controller to your S tablet,  you first need to buy a Tablet S USB dongle and follow these online instructions.  It really added to the excitement of playing Pinball Heroes and Crash Bandicoot using a PS3 controller – it took my gameplay to another level.  I don’t have the USB dongle at home, but I just ordered one so I can use our PS3 controller with the Tablet S at home with my six-year old son, I know he’ll love it, as he’s a fan of Crash Bandicoot.

Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited

Sony has recently introduced two new entertainment options across all their platforms called Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited.  One login gets you into both.  In Video Unlimited you can rent or buy SD and HD videos.  I purchased the Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix*, as my nine-year old has made us all Harry Potter fans.  The movie was 1700 mb, so I have plenty of room on my  16GB Tablet S to house the movie.

I browsed through Music Unlimited and enjoyed 15 second clips of music from the songs I chose.  I was trying to determine which Taylor Swift album my daughter would enjoy the most.  But then I realized that unlike Video Unlimited, Music Unlimited requires a monthly subscription, so I didn’t purchase it.  Sony does offer the first month free but then you will be billed automatically to your credit card afterwards.   The monthly cost is $9.99.  However, you then have any album or song at your fingertips ready to play at a moment’s notice.  You can listen to the music on any of your Sony devices…smartphone, tablet, TV, receivers, network speakers, etc.  You can even create playlists.

More and more data is moving to the cloud which makes it handier and more accessible to us.  No longer do you need to buy mp3’s, now you have access to them all anywhere with a monthly subscription. As I am a PS3 Ambassador, I can’t wait to further explore the synergies between the PS3 and the PS Vita with regards to gaming, pictures, music, and more.  It’s so exciting what the future of technology and access of data will bring.  Sony with its media powerhouse of music, movies, and games will continue to drive innovation and synergies.