索尼新平板 双屏新体验

　　　　One way to stand out in a crowded category of devices is to employ a novel hardware design. Last year, Sony got decent marks from many reviewers, including me, for an Android tablet called the Tablet S, crafted to look like a magazine, with one thick, rounded vertical edge that made it more comfortable to hold than many other tablets. Now, the company has brought out another Android tablet with an even more radical design, and this one shows the limits of novelty.
　　　　要在众多电子设备中脱颍而出的一个办法就是把硬件设计得新颍一些。去年，索尼公司(Sony)基于安卓(Android)系统的Tablet S平板电脑就获得了包括我本人在内的许多评论员的好评。该平板电脑外形酷似杂志，厚重圆润的直边让用户握持起来更加舒适。现在，索尼公司又推出了一款同样基于安卓系统的平板电脑，设计甚至更炫，但却暴露出一味求新的捉襟之处。
　　　　The new Tablet P, sold in AT and T stores, is a 7-inch long, narrow, hinged device with no exposed display at all. When you open it, twin small screens are revealed. Content can appear on one of the two screens, or be spread across both. It can operate over either a Wi-Fi or a cellular-data connection.
　　　　Sony索尼新推出的平板电脑Tablet P美国电话电报公司(AT and T)营业厅销售的索尼新款Tablet P呈狭长型，长7英寸，折叠式，合上时没有外露显示屏。打开后，两块小屏幕会映入眼帘。这两块显示屏既可独立播放内容，也可作为一个大屏幕显示内容。Tablet P支持Wi-Fi和蜂窝数据联网。
　　　　It sounds cool, but the Tablet P has some crucial drawbacks. The most important one is that, to take advantage of its full viewing area by using both screens as a single display, you must put up with a thick, black, plastic bar across the center of whatever you"re viewing. That disruptive scar is the inside of the hinge, where the dual screens meet.
　　　　这一切听起来很酷，可惜Tablet P有一些致命的缺点。其中最大的一个问题是，在将两块屏幕当做一个屏幕使用时，不管看什么，你都必须忍受中间有一道又黑又宽的塑料长条。这道长条就是两块屏幕连接处的内缝部位。
　　　　Some apps avoid that absurd situation by cramming all their content into just one screen. But these screens are small, just 5.5 inches diagonally, closer to the area of a large smartphone than Sony's Tablet S or the iPad, whose screens are about 10 inches. When content is spread across both screens, as it is in the Web browser, the combined display is about 7 inches, but that black bar is present.
　　　　一些应用程序通过将所有内容展示在一个屏幕上，回避了上述问题。但两块屏幕分开来看都很小，对角线的长度只有5.5英寸，跟都为10英寸左右的索尼Tablet S和苹果iPad相比，更接近于一个大屏幕智能手机的显示面积。如果打开Web浏览器，显示内容在两块屏幕上铺开，这时的对角线长度大约有7英寸，但不可避免地要被中间那道黑色长条隔断。
　　　　To be fair, Sony has modified or created some apps so they take intelligent advantage of the dual screens, without the black bar to annoy you. For instance, the email app uses the bottom screen to list your messages and the top one to show whichever message you're reading. Similarly, the stock video player, and many games, use the bottom screen for control buttons and the top for the content.
　　　　另一方面，索尼也确实设计或通过改良推出了一些可以利用双屏幕特色的应用程序，对中间的黑色长条扬长避短。例如，在电邮程序中，下方屏幕显示邮件列表，上方屏幕则显示用户当前查看的邮件内容。类似地，Stock视频播放器和很多游戏都将操控按钮显示在下方屏幕中，上方屏幕则用来显示内容。
　　　　But at launch, there are only about 40 such specially adapted apps out of the hundreds of thousands of Android apps the Tablet P can run. Sony says more will be coming, but I suspect that will depend on how many of these foldout tablets it can sell. And I can't recommend this one.
　　　　但刚上市时，在Tablet P可以运行的数十万安卓应用中，只有大约40款是经过这样特殊改良的。索尼声称今后还会有更多适用Tablet P双屏幕特色的应用程序，但我怀疑这还要取决于这款折叠式平板电脑的销量如何。而从目前来看，我不能推荐这款平板电脑。
　　　　Sony has built-in on-screen buttons that can switch some apps from single-screen to combined-screen mode. But this isn't available in some common, crucial apps, like the Web browser and Google Maps, which must be run in combined-screen mode, with the bar in the middle. You can't run different apps in each screen, only separate parts of the same app.
　　　　索尼为Tablet P配备了内置的屏幕按钮，可以为一些应用程序选择单屏幕或双屏幕显示模式。但该功能不适用于一些常用的重要应用程序，例如Web浏览器和谷歌地图就必须采用双屏幕显示模式，用户不得不忍受中间的黑色长条。用户也无法在两个屏幕上同时运行不同的应用程序，而只能运行同一应用程序的不同部分/功能。
　　　　Because it folds up, the Tablet P is much more portable than iPad-size tablets, or even 7-inch tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It fits in a pants or jacket pocket or a modest-size purse. But when closed, its surfaces are rounded and have an overall thickness of a whopping 1.03 inches -- much thicker than a typical smartphone or tablet -- and so created a bulge.
　　　　折叠式设计使Tablet P比iPad或类似大小的平板电脑更易携带，其便携性甚至优于其他7英寸的平板电脑，如亚马逊(Amazon)的烈火(Kindle Fire)。Tablet P可以装在裤子或上衣口袋里，也可以装在中等大小的钱包里。但合上时，Tablet P的机身呈椭圆型，总厚度达1.03英寸，远超过一般的智能手机或平板电脑。换言之，揣上它，你的口袋肯定会鼓起来。
　　　　There are other downsides. The Tablet P is relatively costly for a small tablet. Sony sells it online for $550, more than the base iPad and much more than the $199, 7-inch Fire. AT and T sells it for $400, but that price requires a two-year contract costing either $35 or $50 a month, depending on how much data you want.
　　　　此外，就小型平板电脑来说，Tablet P相对贵了些。索尼对Tablet P的网上售价为550美元，高于基本款的iPad，更远高于售价199美元、7英寸的烈火。美国电话电报公司对Tablet P的售价为400美元，但前提是要签约两年，每月有35美元和50美元两种套餐可选，具体根据用户需要的数据流量确定。
　　　　This new tablet comes with a paltry amount of memory. It is packaged with a 2 gigabyte removable memory card and 4 gigabytes of internal storage, of which just 1.8 gigabytes is available to the user. That is a total of less than 4GB, versus 16GB for the base iPad. You can buy a larger memory card, up to 32GB, but that adds about $30 in cost.
　　　　Tablet P的容量不大，配有一张2GB的可擦写储存卡和4GB的内存，其中仅1.8GB内存可供用户使用。总计可用内存不足4GB，而基本款iPad内存为16GB。用户也可以选购容量更大的储存卡，至多32GB，但这意味着总成本也要增加约30美元。
　　　　Battery life also is weak. In my standard battery test, where I play videos back to back with the screen at 75% brightness and both Wi-Fi and cellular connections turned on, the Tablet P lasted just 5 hours and 16 minutes, about half the battery life of an iPad. The battery is removable and a spare can be bought for $70.
　　　　电池使用时间也成问题。在标准电池使用测试中，我在75%的屏幕亮度并同时打开Wi-Fi和蜂窝网络连接的情况下，不间断地播放视频。Tablet P的电量仅维持了5小时16分钟，约为iPad电池使用时间的一半。电池是可拆卸的，用户可花70美元购买一块备用电池。
　　　　And the cellular-data connection isn't the fastest type. While it is labeled as 4G, it doesn't use the best 4G technology, called LTE. In my tests, in the Washington, D.C., area, the Tablet P averaged just 3.7 megabits per second over cellular, versus more than 12 mbps for a new iPad running on AT and T's LTE network.
　　　　而且，其蜂窝数据上网的速度也不是最快的。虽然号称是4G网络，但Tablet P用的并非是被称为LTE的最佳4G技术。在我的测试中，在华盛顿特区一带，Tablet P通过蜂窝数据联网的平均网速只有3.7MB/秒，而使用美国电话电报公司LTE网络的新版iPad网速超过12MB/秒。
　　　　Finally, there is the hardware. I found the screens and cameras were OK, but the speaker was very weak. And, in the few days I was using it, a little door covering the USB port fell off and the top cover, which I had removed to insert a cellular SIM card, kept coming loose.
　　　　最后，来谈谈硬件。我发现，显示屏和相机还不错，但扬声器很差。在我所使用的短短数日内，USB接口外面的小盖子脱落了，我为了插SIM卡而打开过的保护套后来也不断松脱。
　　　　Portability is a virtue, and some companies are working on flexible screens that could bend without exposing a hinge. But in my view, the Tablet P doesn't cut it.
　　　　便携性确实是一个制胜法宝，一些公司也在研发能够无缝弯曲的可折叠屏幕。但在我看来，Tablet P在这一点上做得并不成功。