As expected, Sony Corporation of Japan has announced ‘Xperia Tablet S’ on Wednesday at a press event in Berlin, Germany. This tablet features 9.4″ inch display and is powered by Android Ice Cream Sandwich, NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor and Infrared sensor.
In a bid to unify its mobile devices under one name, the new tablet joins Sony’s smartphones under the Xperia sub-brand. Sony has positioned this tablet to give some challenge to Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Note.
Xperia Tablet S also sports a guest mode that allows the owner of the tablet to add personalized configurations for different users by displaying different wallpaper, applications and widgets.
“Tablets are no longer just a personal device, but are being shared by family members, and we heard from consumers that they wanted to have parental controls. It was important for us to provide parents with a solution for controlling what content their children could access from the tablet,” said Phil Lubell, vice president of networked technologies and services at Sony Electronics.
The Xperia tablet will retail in the US from September 7, costing $399 for a 16 GB version and $599 for a 64 GB model, the company said in a press release. Like Microsoft’s device it is also available with a keyboard that doubles as a cover, for which consumers will have to pay an additional $99.99.
Sony is facing rough time with its TV business which has contributed to its overall loss of $ 5.8 billion in the year ended March 31, 2012. Sony’s new tablet comes at a time when the marketplace for tablets is crowded and established brands like Apple and Samsung have made deep inroads into this segment. Moreover, the forthcoming Surface tablet by Microsoft and Samsung’s Windows tablets will make Sony’s job to get good market share more difficult. Road ahead is very un-smooth and Sony can get leverage in the market if it can offer attractive price to the consumers.
