Sony is officially entering the ever-more-crowded tablet field with not one but two new devices, both of which are called by the name – wait for it – "Sony Tablet."
The two Android 3.0 tablets, which currently go by the super-secret codenames "S1" and "S2," will both be released this fall, Sony said Tuesday morning. Although both have remarkably different form factors, each will be "PlayStation Certified," meaning that they will be approved by the company's game division to run games from its PlayStation Suite digital content store. This will include classic games from the company's original PlayStation console and run on a variety of devices including the Xperia Play phone.
Each tablet has its own unique exterior design. The S1 features a wraparound shape, like a folded-over magazine. Sony says that the "off-center of gravity design" makes it more comfortable to hold. Its screen measures 9.4 inches.
The S2 is a clamshell with two 5.5-inch screens; Sony says these could be used as one single screen or for separate functions like "playing video on one screen while showing control buttons on the other." Sounds like something quite suited to gaming, close to a Nintendo DS.
Engadget has photos from a press conference showing the S1 playing the PlayStation game Crash Bandicoot using on-screen buttons.
(Kudos also to Engadget for finding out all the details of the shapes and codenames of both the S1 and the S2 back in February.)
Images courtesy Sony
