New Sony Tablets, the Tablet P

On one of my other blogs I recently wrote about a fondness for gadgets from Sony. Well it would appear that Sony are wanting to enter the Tablet market (again, anyone remember the Clié?)

Sony have announced the Tablet P and the Tablet S. I wrote about the Tablet P in a previous blog post.

Much of what I wrote in that blog post also applies to the Tablet P. However whereas the Tablet P is in some ways is a traditional Android tablet, the Tablet P is a completely different and in many ways very innovative Tablet design.

It has two screens in clamshell design. These are small 5.5” screens, bigger than the 4.3” screen of the PSP and there are two of them. The clamshell design means that one screen can be used for the display and the other for input. This could mean a keyboard filling the bottom screen, or a PSP style gaming interface.

Much of what I wrote about the Tablet S applies to the Tablet P, especially in terms of apps, games, books, music and video. It has DLNA capability, can play a wide range of video and audio, there are games, books and all the apps from the Android marketplace.

Like the Tablet S it runs Honeycomb, the optimised version of Android for Tablets. There is only one model available and it comes with 3G as well as wifi. It does come with limited storage with only 4GB built in, but unlike the iPad does have an SD memory card slot. The camera is only VGA, so okay for video calls and Skype, but not that good for taking photos or video.

Though I really like this concept, the thing that will stop me buying it, is the price. I don’t really see this as an iPad competitor, though I am sure Sony see it as that, I see it much more as an alternative to the iPod touch. The 8GB iPod touch is only £193, the Sony Tablet P is £499 which is in my opinion very expensive for a tablet device. It’s a clever design and with its back end support in terms of content, it can compete with the iPad or the iPod touch in that area, but £499 is a very uncompetitive price even for a device with an innovative design. I can’t see this selling, and I am sure then Sony will be forced to reduce the price.

Great looking Android device with access to lots of great apps and content, but let down by an expensive price!

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