Sony Xperia Tablet S sneaks onto shelves, finally

Sony Xperia Tablet S sneaks onto shelves, finally
Wow! Look at that!

The Sony Xperia Tablet S has quietly gone on sale without any of the fanfare, or even a press release, usually associated with a product becoming available.

After swiftly being pulled from shelves at the start of October due to water damage issues, Sony has kept to its promise to re-release the Xperia Tablet S before the end of November - just.

The tablet was launched at IFA 2012 back at the beginning of September, and the update to the original Sony Tablet S does have some promise, as we found in our hands on Sony Xperia Tablet S review.

Just in time for Christmas

Keeping the unique folded-back-book design of its predecessor, the Xperia Tablet S offers up a slimmer, lighter frame which is easier on the hand, a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, the choice of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models, all of which run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

There are also Wi-Fi and 3G variants of the tablet available, and currently via the Sony website you can pick up the 16GB model of each, with the Wi-Fi only tablet setting you back £329 and the 3G capable slate coming in at £429.

The 32GB Wi-Fi and 64GB Wi-Fi models are currently displaying as out of stock, but are priced at £379 and £449 respectively.

However, during its time out of the customer's sight the Xperia Tablet S has seen some rather tough competition crop up in time for Christmas, with the iPad Mini, Amazon Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD, Google Nexus 10 and larger-capacity and cellular Google Nexus 7 all vying for attention.

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John McCann
Former Global Managing Editor

TechRadar's former Global Managing Editor, John has been a technology journalist for more than a decade, and over the years has built up a vast knowledge of the tech industry. He’s interviewed CEOs from some of the world’s biggest tech firms, visited their HQs, and appeared on live TV and radio, including Sky News, BBC News, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, LBC, and BBC Radio 4.