Not sure how I missed AT&T’s introduction of the Sony Tablet P last week, but I did. While there has been a ton of news in the mobile world about a variety of products from the latest Pad to all of the products shown in Barcelona, the Tablet P is a bit different.
The reason for this is that it is a hybrid, but not like say, the Samsung Note that is a cross between a tablet and a smartphone. This is a hybrid because it is a tablet that folds in half. The clamshell form would seem to put it solidly in the notebook/netbook category, but is it one?
Not really but I think that many will view it as such, and tablets are still new enough that many will want one with what they view as the proper from factor, not a device that can be mistaken for a netbook.
The Tablet P is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of storage with an additional 2GB available using a microSD card. It runs the Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system. It has a 5 MP camera and can record 720p video
The key feature on the tablet is the display, which consists of two separate 5.5-inch touch screens with 1024 x 480 resolution. The device folds nicely into a small form factor and can be easily stowed, or at least easier than a 10-inch tablet can be. It basically has the size of a smartphone when closed.
The tablet has Sony Playstation certification and looks to be a solid game machine, but if that is what a user wants why not get a Sony PS Vita? A bit more feature rich it might make a nice backup device for a notebook user, but appears to lack the storage for that. The Tablet P looks like it just does not fit well into any one niche and it will be interesting to see if Sony can create one for it. Rightnow that is not the way I would bet.
The tablets are available now for around $500 from Sony’s official web site but AT&T is offering the tablet bundled with a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play phone for $299.99
for whatever reason, i think this device is ugly