Sony has long had a penchant for stylish electronics, and they come out swinging with two products this fall, the S1, which is a tablet in form, and the s2, with a two-piece split screen, a new take on the old clamshell design, resurrected from the flip-phone era. We like the concept for the S1, it’s not your standard boxy slab.
Through thick and thin...
Tablet’s are handled a lot, and how the device feels in your hands is a a huge factor that may not be apparent in the store- it may be 4 hours reading an e-book before you start to hate how it feels. The S1′s asymmetrical thick, rounded edge is designed to feel like a magazine. It looks like it just might be fabulous- we haven’t had our hands on one yet.
The 9.4-inch (1,280×768 pixels) touch screen offers great viewing angles and vivid colors, comparable to the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Sony also touts its proprietary Quick Touch Panel enhancements to the panel used on the S1 (and S2), allowing for more responsive multitouch input.
The electronics giant may have it’s work cut out conveying the differences to customers. The “distinct advantages” of Sony’s tablets that executives were touting are its hardware design, software tweaks for making Web pages load faster and touch responsiveness quicker, and integration with Sony’s Qriocity multimedia streaming services.
Sony’s pair of tablets run Google’s Android operating system. They will debut sometime in the fall, Sony executives said. The company plans to disclose information about pricing and release dates closer to their debut. We think Sony is looking up-scale for it’s pricing, you pay a little more for “Sony” style. -cf
