Sony Xperia Tablet S

The Sony Xperia Tablet S ($399 list) builds on the original Tablet S's magazine-like form factor, but updates the internal components to better compete with current high-end tablets.

The Xperia Tablet S looks and feels like a classier and more subdued take on Sony's first tablet.

Front and center is a 9.4-inch 1,280-by-800-pixel LCD, which is well below the 1,920-by-1080-pixel displays we've been seeing on some high-end Android tablets like the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700.

The rolled edge leaves two slightly recessed areas on the left and right sides. In the left recess is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a removable flap that covers a full-sized SD card slot, a boon for photographers. The right recess is home to Power and Volume buttons.

It still has the rolled-over edge, but the tapered wedge shape is gone. Instead, the tablet has a flat, brushed-aluminum back that resembles an Apple iPad with black plastic wrapped around one end.

The speakers get loud by tablet standards, and while they aren't quite as harsh at top volume as many other tablets, they still lack any serious bass response, making music sound thin and tinny.

Along the bottom edge is a removable flap for the proprietary docking port connector, flanked by two metal speaker grilles. The Xperia S is splashproof, which explains the removable flaps on the ports, but the docking port flap is not attached like the SD card flap, meaning it'll be easy to misplace.

It's lighter than the Tablet S but not as well-balanced, making it slightly less comfortable to hold.

This is a Wi-Fi only tablet that connects to 802.11b/g/n networks on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.

The Xperia Tablet S (pictured to the left) looks a lot like the New Apple iPad (pictured to the right) from the back.

The Sony branded media player apps are improvements over the stock Android options. Walkman, Album, and Movies all provide slick and easy to use interfaces for accessing all locally stored content.