By Alexandra Burlacu | Oct 06, 2012 01:02 PM EDT
Sony has hit the brakes on sales of its Xperia Tablet S after finding a manufacturing defect that affected the tablet's water resistance feature.
The Xperia Tablet S is supposed to be water resistant, but Sony has discovered gaps between the screen and the case on some units. Those gaps left the devices vulnerable to water damage, so the company has stopped selling the tablet until it addresses the issue.
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The problem occurred as a result of a manufacturing flaw at the Chinese plant where the slates are manufactured, said Sony spokeswoman Noriko Shoji, according to a Reuters report on Friday, Oct. 5. The spokeswoman added that Sony has yet to decide when it will resume sales of the Xperia Tablet S.
The tablet recently went on sale on Sept. 7 in the United States, followed by Japan, Europe, and other markets. According to Sony, so far it shipped roughly 100,000 units. The company promised to fix, free of cost, any tablets shipped that have the manufacturing defect. Sony expects the cost of the recall to have no significant impact on its earnings.
The Sony Xperia Tablet S runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, sports a 9.4-inch display with a 1280 x 800 resolution, and packs an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor under the hood. It also comes with 1GB of RAM, and weighs in at 1.26 pounds. The device comes with a price tag between $400 and $600, depending on storage capacity. Available configurations range between 16GB and 64GB of internal storage capacity.
Sony's latest tablet has been branded Xperia like the company's smartphone, in a bid to unify its mobile devices under a single name. Its predecessor was simply called the Sony Tablet S. The Xperia Tablet S is the first Sony tablet since the company broke up with long-term partner Ericsson.
While the Xperia Tablet S made some waves upon launch, it joins a crowded market that is still dominated by Apple's high-end iPad. Sony also faces tough competition from Samsung Electronics, Apple's main Android challenger.
Is your Sony Xperia Tablet S water resistant, or is it among the units with the reported manufacturing defect?
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