There's a big gulf between an unboxing and a full review, and we're always looking for ways to fill it. Our friendly neighborhood FedEx man dropped the Sony Xperia Tablet Z on our porch this morning, whereupon we promptly tore, cut, and otherwise fought our way into its packaging - all to give our fellow geeky voyeurs a rough idea of what the first few moments of Tablet Z ownership are like. (We'd like to thank Negri Electronics, by the way, for the quick shipping that made this end-of-week video possible.) It only took a few minutes to log in to our various accounts and start ...

Dude(tte)s. The HTC One is killing it right now. I qualify this up front by saying the phone isn't released yet, and in fact will likely see significant delays reaching the market in significant numbers. Also, despite our review units arriving in retail packaging with near-final or final hardware and software, we should toss out a little CYA here saying that yes, it's possible that the units reaching customer hands will have some kind of widespread problem that spells doom for the brand. We don't think that's likely, though. By all accounts, from Pocketnow and elsewhere, it looks like ...

I'll admit it, when the original iPad came out I was somewhat "critical" of it. You may even be able to find a quote from me floating around the inner webz that goes something like this: "The iPad: it's just like the iPhone, only bigger... and without the phone." Yeah, I know, coming from "Joe the Android Guy" that sentiment isn't surprising. What you may find surprising is that, although I won't retract those words today, I will admit that the iPad and other tablets have come far enough that they've come far enough that they can probably replace your laptop. In the beginning, tablets were ...

Once considered a niche device that held no true purpose, the tablet has beat all odds to become a thriving, mainstream product. It has come to be a choice item in many people's mobile arsenal, a common household item for many. For me, the tablet has become a staple in my workflow. Such is the case for many of the people I know – colleagues, friends, family and strangers. I can't go to the local coffee shop without seeing at least a couple people plop their iPad on the table. And just about all hours of the day, I have my iPad mini propped up, waiting to notify me of any incoming ...

This year's Consumer Electronics Show from Las Vegas has come and gone. As usual, we've been both on-site bringing you coverage from events as well as the show floor, and here on Pocketnow, keeping you up to date with what's going on in the mobile world. For some the show has been excellent; for others it has been a letdown. We can't compare CES to a specialized mobile event like MWC (maybe with IFA); still, our experience from past years has taught us to expect certain things to happen at CES. They might or might not have happened in a straightforward way but there was a lot of innovation ...

"The Snowball, the 6-Inch Mate, & the In-N-Out Experience." That's the summary that led us out of our most recent podcast, and it narrowly missed becoming the title of this here episode, number 26 in our weekly series. This is a very special episode, coming to you straight from the luxurious Pocketnow suites overlooking the blink-tastic Las Vegas strip. For the past few days, we've been covering the happenings from CES 2013, bringing you video after video of devices from manufacturers of all stripes. It hasn't been the most hardware-heavy show in memory, but that doesn't mean we don't ...

Last week, we were doing some jawing on the Pocketnow Weekly podcast, debating the merits and pitfalls of the Surface RT. While we've done that on almost every episode of the Weekly since the release of Microsoft's first home-sourced tablet PC, we got more in-depth than usual on last week's episode and I encourage you to check it out. One of the topics we chewed over was that of the Surface RT's actual usability. I remarked that the Surface had so far proven to me more of a novelty than a productivity-enhancer. Despite my feeling that it is indeed a device from the future, I've recently ...

Around here, we're no stranger to the Surface RT, Microsoft's first home-sourced tablet and perhaps Windows 8's most visible public embodiment. Our own Brandon Miniman gave it the full review treatment a few weeks back and found it a "problematic product," noting that it tries to deliver both a casual touch experience and a desktop-like environment for "real work," but ultimately fails at both. Despite the controversial nature of that assertion (at least here in our comments section), it's been reinforced by fair-to-middling reviews from other outlets, confusing statements from Microsoft's ...