[Update] Sony Tablet S Ice Cream Sandwich Edition

We were impressed with the Sony S Tablet when we reviewed it back in December. Sure, it had it's flaws, but overall, it was a great 9.4-inch tablet with a quirky aesthetic design packing Android 3.1 Honeycomb. Now, however, it's rocking Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich.

A great new feature from the off, is the lock screen. Now, instead of just unlocking the device, you now have the option of selecting either the camera or unlock button. It's simple, but it works.

Regarding the layout of the Sony S, not much has changed. The font and colour style has changed from white/grey to a vibrant Blue (and white still) and it really pops out. The 'back' button has changed from the block arrow, to the arrow we all knew from other Android devices.

The multitasking bar appears at the left hand side, letting you select an app to jump to, it's not a new edition to the S, but it seemed a little more rapid than the Honeycomb variant.

The App & Widget menu has had a revamp, offering a 3D-Slider instead of the old vertical scroller.

Settings too have had a revamp, now in a much slicker presentation than before, making it much easier to tinker and tweak with the S.

Then there's new shortcut bar at the bottom, which has access to the browser, calculator and remote.

Notifications now have the Slide To Delete function, which is much, much easier than having to tap the tiny 'x' that sat beside each notification. Now, you simply slide them away.

Obviously, games haven't changed with the ICS update, but the shortcut bar stays along the bottom, which isn't to disturbing, although some may find it intrusive.

Being ICS, it means that the Google Chrome Browser is available, and we found it pretty quick, and syncing from PC is a great touch.

However, the Sony S's own browser has had an upgrade, and is much faster rendering pages.

The full Remote Control menu, giving you access to all the devices you'e set up.

The remote shortcut gives you a small pop-up box that has the basic functions of the devices you've set up for remote control.

Which you can use, or touch through to take you to the full remote.

The music player hasn't seen any improvements, although the 'scattered' albums are still nice to flick through.

Being Playstation Certified, the S can download full PSone games from the Playstation Store.

And, you know what, that's about it. We've not gone into too much detail, because to be honest, whilst the changes are indeed great, they're not all that obvious, as most of the features should have been implemented from the beginning. Does the Ice Cream Sandwich update change our final score of the Sony S Tablet? Nope, it was a good tablet, and it's simply now that bit better.