Gadgetory

back in 2012 interlaced video the HP TouchPad and spiky hair were still a thing and the pocket now intro looked like this also in 2012 some tablets looked like this I'm Michael Fisher and this is the pocket now throwback review of a tablet future that never was the Sony Tablet P say the word tablet in 2015 and you probably picture something like this hell even in 2011 the word tablet conjured up a big slab and not an oversized eyeglass case but that's what sony delivered with the tablet P and I wanted one so badly three years later thanks to ebay I finally got my wish and well it sure is something in many respects the tablet P was a very strange product and much of that strangeness worked against it when opened its dual 5.5 inch displays did their best to form a single the fairly spacious 7 inch panel but the clamshell hinge necessitated a big bezel bisecting the screens sometimes thanks to optimized apps this could be handy but more often it just made the experience feel bizarrely disjointed and the TFT displays themselves weren't much good either washing out and shifting colors with even moderately off angle viewing Plus this thing shipped with Android Honeycomb a decidedly awkward experience no matter what hardware it ran on using the tablet p with this software brings back all kinds of awful memories of stuttering animations nonsensical layouts and ugly icons I don't miss troubleshooting in these earlier cruder Android built to give Google credit though it did get one thing right in honeycomb notifications showed up down below where they were easy to access I wouldn't mind if that kind of logic and reason came back into vogue as unconventional as this device is there's more to like here than you might expect remember this was before the widespread adoption of jumbo phones when combining a small smart phone and a tablet was still considered by some to be a viable option for a mobile lifestyle while it was definitely on the heavy side the tablet piece Hardware was and still is quite portable our model here is the AT&T version with embedded LTE so it could be folded up stuffed into a pocket and then brought out and used almost anywhere as a large format smart device and it's strikingly beautiful from some angles with Sony's typical fit and finish and robust build quality joining up with convenient expansion features like a removable battery and a micro SD card slot also Sony's always been big on building its own software for better or worse and it took the time to optimize some custom apps for the dual screen setup here those apps helped the tablet pee bridge the gap between tablets and netbooks and in some situations the novel form factor was almost useful like the Nintendo DS the tablet P used its form factor to enhance gaming and it sort of worked out but there's a reason there was never a tablet p2 and it's the same reason this refurb only cost us a Benjamin on eBay it's not a terribly great product the corners are sharp on the palms when you go handheld the cameras as subpar as most cameras were in 2011 the speakers are terrible and it's tough to get over both the weird aspect ratio and the big neutral zone right in the middle of the screen more to the point it's just really hard to beat the simplicity and the value proposition of one unified device as both smartphone and tablet I'm glad I finally got to spend some time with this strangest of all Android tablet and part of me wishes manufacturers had kept experimenting in this vein certainly the modern tablet landscape could use a jolt of excitement but when you factor in how little added screen real estate you actually got with the tablet P and how much of a usability penalty you paid to get it I don't think anyone's surprised that we never saw a successor for more retro reviews from PocketNow check out our other throwbacks here on youtube and see more recent reviews at pocketnow.com be sure to subscribe and give us a thumbs up if you did enjoy this video until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter thanks for watching we'll see you next time