I'm Jason Jenkins for CNET at Sony's offices in London with the Tablet Z. Let's take a look.
The first thing that Sony is very proud of is that the interface is the same as the one on its flagship phone, the Xperia Z with a lot more screen real estate.
Sony doesn't offer a standard Android experience, but adds a bunch of extra apps for music, photography, video, and more.
If you just want to pick up the tablet and use it with your Sony gear,
that's a good thing, but the downside is that you have to wait longer to get the latest Android software updates.
If that doesn't matter to you though, Sony software looks pretty useful.
The Walkman app contains a bunch of EQ settings that let you tweak the sound that comes out of the 4 speakers until your heart's content.
There's a simple clear audio setting that punches everything up automatically or you can override it with some faders until you're happy with the sound you're getting.
In the battery setting, switching on the stamina mode turns various functions of the tablet
off, so you can eke out the battery for longer, Sony says up to 4 times longer.
If there's an app you want to continue to function as normal, say one that automatically notifies you when something new has happened, you can just add it to a list.
Sony says it's been working with its camera division to bring some of its technology over to the Tablet Z, and that includes the camera menus.
There are various shortcuts to things like burst mode, picture effects, panoramas, and more, plus when you look at the pictures with Sony's app, there's a cool effect when you zoom in and out of them.
A
universal remote app works with a built-in IR blaster to control TVs, Blu-ray players, and other home entertainment boxes.
Sony has a large database of products already loaded onto the tablet, so you should be able to select the manufacturer model of your product from a list and everything would just work, but if your TV isn't there, you can add it manually.
Finally there's TV SideView, an app that displays an EPG of what's coming up on the TV channels you receive.
It also lets you control the apps on certain Smart TVs and search across different sources for a
program including YouTube and Sony's own content network.
So that's Sony's Tablet Z, is out in May.
I'm Jason Jenkins for CNET.
See you next time.
