Distortions
The AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR VC produces a fairly strong degree of barrel distortion at 17mm (3.3%) - in fact this is a bit worse than the non-VC variant of the lens. At 24mm the problem is already very much reduced and no longer annoying. There're no relevant signs of distortion anymore at 35mm and 50mm.
Vignetting
The AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR VC is a dedicated APS-C format lens and these lenses tend to produce comparatively high vignetting figures. The Tamron lens is no exception to the rule with a edge darkening of more than EV (f-stop) at f/2.8 at 17mm, 24mm and 50mm. Stopping down to f/4 resolves most of the problem although you may still spot a hint of vignetting at 17mm here.
MTF (resolution)
The lens showed a bit of a mixed resolution characteristic in the MTF lab. At 17mm the center performance is great straight from f/2.8 and the borders are also good at f/2.8 and very good beyond. However, the extreme corners remain rather unimpressive even stopped down. There's also a bit of a field curvature problem here. At longer focal lengths the center quality remains on a very high level but the borders are quite soft at f/2.8. Stopping down improves the performance at f/4 but it's better to go for f/5.6 here (unless you just need a sharp center of course). The generally very good maximum is reached at f/8 which is a bit "late" for such a large aperture lens.
Chromatic Aberrations (CAs)
Lateral Chromatic aberrations (color shadows at harsh contrast transitions) are very well controlled for such a lens. The "worst" figures were measured at 17mm (unsurprisingly) with a width of ~1.3px at the image borders at f/2.8 - this is already very acceptable and it's even less at smaller aperture settings here. The problem isn't overly field relevant at longer focal lengths.
Bokeh
We had a brief look at the quality of the bokeh (out-of-focus blur) at 50mm. The blur is generally very smooth both in the fore- and background. Bright out-of-focus highlights can produce an outlining effect at f/2.8 although the effect improves at f/4.
Verdict
The Tamron AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical [IF] VC is a very promising lens based on its sheer specifications. However, it falls somewhat short of the high expectations especially when considering the excellent performance of its non-VC variant. The biggest weakness of the lens is the rather soft corner/border performance at large aperture settings. The quality increases when stopping down and it's certainly possible to achieve very high quality results from f/5.6 onwards (a bit of corner softness remains at 17mm). The level of distortions and vignetting is about average for a lens in this class. The good news is the unusually low degree of lateral CAs which increases the subjective quality perception at the image borders quite a bit. The quality of the bokeh is generally decent for a lens in this class.
The build quality of the lens is good although not professional grade (expectedly). The AF is very fast whereas the short focus path isn't exactly suitable for precise manual focusing. The primary new feature - the VC (vibration compensation) - works very well and its efficiency is easily comparable to Canon's native solution (IS). However, when considering all aspects here the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 USM IS remains the lens to beat in this lens class.