Sony Finds Flaw in Xperia Tablet S, Suspends Sales

Less than a month after launching its latest slate, the Xperia Tablet S, Sony is temporarily suspending sales of the device due to a manufacturing defect that left the supposed "splash proof" tablet susceptible to water damage.

According to the company, some of the Android-powered slates have a gap between the screen and case, a result of a manufacturing flaw at the Chinese plant where the devices are put together. Unfortunately for Sony, it has touted the tablet's water resistant design as a major selling point, highlighting its alleged IPX-4 splash proof rating.

In addition to halting sales, the company has said it will fix any of the tablets sold. Following the launch of the Xperia Tablet S in Japan and Europe, Sony released the slate in the U.S. as well, shipping around 100,000 units so far. Despite not knowing when it will resume sales, the Japanese company is remaining optimistic, saying it doesn't expect the cost of the recall to significantly impact earnings.

A Closer Look at the Xperia Tablet S

Sony first unveiled the successor to last year's Tablet S at IFA in August, showing off the device's 9.4-inch IPS 1280 x 800 resolution display. Powered by Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the latest slate from Sony packs a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and a 6000mAh battery, giving users 12 hours of video or 10 hours of web surfing, according to the company.

The tablet also features an 8-megapizel rear-facing camera, as well as a 1-megapixel front-facing one, and is equipped with support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and HDMI video-out.

When available, the Sony Xperia Tablet S comes in three versions 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB that sell for $400, $500 and $600, respectively.