Sony Table S And Tablet P To Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Updates

Sony has issued a statement, without much fanfare that they are going to upgrade both their Tablet S and Tablet P to the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich version. This announcement was made in a very insignificant manner on Sony’s official online community forum. It comes as no surprises to the consumers though, as the company had already announced their plans to upgrade the compatible Sony Xperia Series phones to Android 4.0 starting March 2012.
The Sony Tablet S has continued to impress reviewers and users with its nice ergonomic built and lightweight design. Respected mobile analyst Sascha Segan in fact said that the Sony Tablet S was in fact one of the ”best-looking Android Tablets around” thanks to its wedge-shaped design that resembles a magazine. That in turn inspires a familiar feeling in the user when the tablet is held and used.
However, when it comes to features, the Sony Tablet S was somewhat deficient when compared to the other leading tablets in the market like the Apple iPad 2 and the Amazon Kindle Fire. Even though the two compared tablets are at either ends of the price spectrum, each has its own set of advantages and features that makes them leading tablets in their price points. The iPads are overall the largest selling tablets in the history of the industry in fact.
Android 4.0 was only released some time back and the only mass market device currently up for grabs with the OS inside is the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone that bears Google’s co-branding thanks to the ‘Nexus’ name brand. However, competing manufacturers like LG will soon be launching their own smartphones with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and almost every manufacturer, including the likes of HTC, will be upgrading currently available compatible handsets to Android 4.0 at some point in the future.
Android 4.0 ICS is one OS that can run on both smartphones and tablets like Sony Tablet S. So there are also major plans for Android 4.0 tablets in 2012. Google has even announced they will be ‘marketing’ an Android tablet that is going to be of the “highest quality” — which has been read by the industry as an announcement of the first ever tablet from the ‘Nexus’ line of flagship Android devices.
Google has made its intentions clear about fighting tooth and nail with current top player Apple (iPad and iPad 2) for market share. The official statement from Eric Schmidt mentioned being in a “brutal competition” with Apple even though he expressed respect and admiration for what Steve Jobs and Apple have achieved together. In the end, he said that it can’t be helped because this is “capitalism”.
Android 4.0 upgrades have not been without their set of difficulties though. Since many of the phones run their own custom UI, like the TouchWiz UI on Samsung Phones or the Sense UI on HTC phones, many of them cannot support increased processing demands for Android 4.0 and custom UI at the same time. This is the reason Samsung had to announce that they cannot upgrade certain models because despite a 1GHz processor, the pressure is still too much for smooth performance.