Sony Tablet S ships, gets Android 3.2 just in time
updated 12:50 pm EDT, Fri September 16, 2011
Sony Tablet S hits stores with new OS upgrade
On cue, Sony on Friday started shipping the Tablet S to stores in North America. The 9.4-inch inaugural Android tablet carries a unique 'folded' design and extra tricks like built-in infrared control of home theaters and real SD card file transfers. It ships for $500 in 16GB Wi-Fi trim and $600 for 32GB.
Day and date with the release, Sony has also delivered Android 3.2 to the Tablet S and will likely be waiting as an update for new owners. The update isn't as dramatic on the Tablet S as it is for other platforms, Electronista can say from testing. Sony currently has more SD card support than Google does, while the interface won't need to adapt to the new size. A minor lift should come through better graphics acceleration, although we didn't notice immediate changes in the OS, and support for scaling up some apps that don't work well with Android's usual methods.
Apart from the core OS, the only other identified update is support for Video Unlimited on the tablet, although this appears to be backend support rather than the app. After loading the update, the Video Unlimited app still tells us that that support is coming soon. Sony may require a separate update to the app itself that hasn't yet arrived.
