First peek at Sony's new twin Android tablets, coming in Fall, 2011

As noted earlier, at a press event in Japan today, Sony announced two new tablets: S1 (codename), "optimized for rich media entertainment," and S2 (codename), "ideal for mobile communication and entertainment." The devices will be offered for sale this fall, and will run on Android 3.0 with WiFi and WAN (3G/4G) compatibility. From the press release:

S1 has a 9.4-inch display for enjoying the web and rich content on a large screen. Its off-center of gravity design realizes stability and ease of grip as well as a sense of stability and lightness, offering comfortable use for hours.
S2 has two 5.5-inch displays that can be folded for easy portability. In contrast to existing tablets, its unprecedented dual screen presentation and usability allows its displays to be combined and used as a large screen or for different functions such as playing video on one screen while showing control buttons on the other.

More details and a preview video at the Sony blog. And more images provided by Sony of the S1 and S2 below in this Boing Boing post. Click any image to view larger size.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Chevan

Reminds me of my DS.
Don

If I had root-kitted a few thousand computers, I might be getting out of prison just about now.
- deckard68
  
  @26 You can’t go to jail for civil offenses.
  - flosofl
    
    Well, it’s a good thing he’s referencing a US Federal law that is a felony, isn’t it?
RevelryByNight

I can haz pressure-sensitivity and stylus input, plz?
Anonymous

So the S1 (the tablet) has an “off-center of gravity design”. I would assume the fatter end is heavier – making it tend to roll out of your hands and smash on the floor. Either that or the thin (nearest end) is heavier, which would surprise anyone picking it up for the first time.

In general, I think these look more like objects designed to be looked at, rather than held and used.
- Michael Smith
  
  So the S1 (the tablet) has an “off-center of gravity design”. I would assume the fatter end is heavier – making it tend to roll out of your hands and smash on the floor. Either that or the thin (nearest end) is heavier, which would surprise anyone picking it up for the first time.
  
  Thats interesting. I have this gimmick hilighter pen from a drug rep. It is shaped like a capsule but it is weighted so that it will sit upright on one curved end. Makes me wonder if you could make a tablet stand up the same way. The general idea is that if it rolls towards a flat position it has to lift the weight in one end off the ground, which it won’t do so it stays upright.
deckard68

Cue the anti-Sony zealots with their tale of the Sony rootkit fiasco (from 10+ years ago) in 3…2…1…
- Don
  
  I wouldn’t describe myself as an anti-Sony “zealot,” just someone who knows better than to do business with criminals, and has a memory.
  
  Why would I trust them? Have they had a total change in their corporate culture? Have they apologized for the rootkit?
- Halloween Jack
  
  Actually, I was going to refer to the massive fail on Sony’s part going on right now with regard to the PlayStation Network being down indefinitely, sucks to be you if you just got Portal 2 and wanted to play the co-op part. But, hey, thanks for reminding us of the rootkit mess, too!
- Anonymous
  
  @deckard68
  
  I’d almost forgotten the Sony Rootkit fiasco until Sony hit the news last year with the remote removal of functionality from Playstation units that had already been sold.
  Sony’s corporate attitude seems to be that Sony owns the products, even after they are sold, and you are only permitted to to use ‘your’ items in ways that Sony permits. Until I see evidence that that attitude has changed, I will not purchase anything from Sony, nor will I suggest a Sony product to anyone else.
- wrybread
  
  Um, that was more like 4-6 years ago, from start to finish. Strikes me as still a valid concern.
  - deckard68
    
    @15: 5 years + 5 months ago. Sony should hire Shatner to do a riff on his SNL appearance.
Anonymous

…and it won’t have any online functionality for the foreseeable future.
Anonymous

Great Sony hardware without the consistently crappy Sony software?! This could actually be amazingly great.
selfish3

is it just me or are there playstation symbols on the back, bottom right corner?
- TooGoodToCheck
  
  It’s not just you – that looks a lot like the playstation symbol, with the four icons from their joystick. Not sure why it is so marked though.
  - Anonymous
    
    Check the website link. As I noted before, it apparently plays Playstation(PS2?PS3?) or PSP games, which you can buy online from some sort of Sony game store. Which is the one really cool feature it seems to have. Seems like a good explanation for Playstation logos for me.
    
    - same Anon @13
Kimmo

I’m thinking Sony will have to do better than this to regain their reputation…

Can’t see these being the next Trinitron/Walkman/Discman… that requires obvious superiority through innovation. The aforementioned pressure-sensitivity and stylus input might have helped in that regard…
Daemon

This is sony, so they will cost too much and the company will randomly remove features or the like just to remind you that you don’t actually own anything any more.

Hmm. It really is just like an iPad.
Anonymous

Look good, but due to the reprehensible behavior Sony have shown regarding hackers and DIYs with the playstation, and the infamous rootkit fiasco, I am not buying Sony until they really show that they have changed their ways for the better.
turn_self_off

As far as i can tell, the shots are only of the S1. So where are the shots of the S2?
dave

I hope it accepts all these UMD films I bought last time sony unveiled a revolution.

I hope they advise me to upgrade to vista ultimate on it, then tell me it’s not supported.

I hope they sue people trying to run linux on it… hang on, what?
Anonymous

Knowing Sony’s Kafkianesque attitudes towards media management and digital rights, expect to see mundane tasks like loading up MP3s/video files into this gadget an exercise in frustration.

Ah, it warms the heart how Apple-led aesthetics keep setting the standard for the industry, down to the way screen reflections are simulated on product mock-up press images.
Anonymous

Sony will certainly over price this like everything else they make…Greed is their God after all!
Anonymous

I read a review of the first two-screen tablet to come out (not this one), and it apparently SUCKS. Part of the suck was software – which with Android 3.0 I doubt will be an issue. But a lot of it was that there’s an inch-thick black bar between the two screens when used “as one screen”… and this one clearly shares that problem. You can’t really use both screens as one to view a website, a kindle book, a movie, etc. FAIL!

That stand on the S1 is probably going to ruin *its* chances, too – being able to use it laid not-quite-flat on a table would be nice, sure, but it makes the device very horizontal-orientation-only. If you want to use it for ebooks/vertical websites/pdfs etc, it’s worse than no stand at all. And people want them slim and light to fit in bags/jackets better, not with that excess bulk. By the same token, what’s with the inch-wide margins?

Plus – looking at the website – this is the first I’ve heard of a “Sony Reader”. I’m sure that as compared to Kindle, that equates to “higher prices, more DRM, can’t read it on anything but this tablet, sucks to be you!”. Sony’s proprietary music and video service? Same deal. DO NOT WANT.

The ability to get Playstation/PSP games on it is the only cool software feature I’m seeing (so yes, selfish3@6, those probably ARE Playstation logos)… how about they just let us buy that as a fairly-high-cost ($20 or $30) app for OTHER Android tablets instead? I bet that’d actually make them way more money in the long run.

Did they not actually run these past any real users or something?
Thorzdad

So, this is really just an announcement of CG mockups of tablets Sony claims will come to market in the fall, right? No actual working prototypes at the announcement? Just slick CG images and a laundry list of what Sony claim the tablets will do?
Biglig

@Thorzad: What’s amazing is that there are actually some companies daft enough to have “iPad killer” tablets that *aren’t* imaginary.

You’d think by now that they’d have noticed that whenever someone actually ships something it’s a disaster for all concerned… Stick to imaginary products is my advice to them.
wrybread

They need to master Apple’s fine art of having tiny little people hold their tablets to make them look gigantic.
Cax6ton

So unless Sony has changed drastically, these will be:
1. Very expensive compared to the competition.
2. Somewhat innovative – they’ll be smaller, or lighter, or have some feature that no one else has.
3. Flimsy, with a short warranty, and will break not long after the warranty expires.
4. Orphaned and forgotten by Sony after a year when it doesn’t become The Next Walkman

Why Sony keeps following the same pattern for the last 15 years or so is still a mystery. It’s like they keep trying to make the next Walkman, but if the first try doesn’t succeed like the Walkman did, they torch everything and move on to something else, leaving some really good ideas and features that could have been refined, but instead get adopted by everyone else.
- Anonymous
  
  I find it funny that the company who made the highest selling gaming console of all time has been following a failing pattern for the past 15 years
- Anonymous
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc ?