Sony Enters Tablet War With Wedge- and Burrito-Shaped Devices

Sony is diving into the tablet race, announcing Tuesday that is working on two gadgets that will hit the market this fall.One of the tablets, code-named S1, will be a flat slate with a 9.4-inch screen, just a touch smaller than Apple's iPad

Sony has shown off a pair of tablets that will launch later this year. The S1 is little more than yet another Honeycomb tablet in a Sony-designed box, with a 9.4-inch widescreen display and a wedge-shaped case.

Way more interesting is the S2, a clamshell tablet with two 5.5-inch screens. Each section has a rounded back, making it look like a squashed burrito when closed. When open, you can use it as a tablet with a black stripe down the middle, or each screen can display different content, similar to the dual-screen Nintendo DS consoles.

And the gaming analogy is apt. The tablets will work with the PlayStation Suite platform, which is Sony’s way of putting PS software onto various devices. We got our first glimpse of it on the PlayStation phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. For more on the gaming aspects of the tablets, head over to our sister site Game|Life where Chris Kohler takes a look.

Both tablets will come with Wi-Fi and optionally 3G or 4G, and run Honeycomb. And both tablets will also pack infrared lamps to control Sony Bravia devices. They’ll also beam music and video to compatible devices via the DLNA wireless protocol, which is similar in concept to Apple’s AirPlay.

All in all, these look like pretty neat devices, especially if you are already heavily invested in Sony gear. Price and availability are both as yet unannounced, but if you pencil in “expensive” and “later this year” then you won’t go far wrong.

Lastly, a weird quote lifted from Sony’s press release. Talking about the OS, Google’s Android boss Andy Ruben apparently said the following: “Android 3.0 is a new version of the Android platform with a new holographic user interface that is designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets.” Holographic?

via : wired.com