Being able to carry your entire book collection has become a feature of tablet computers. But Sony has gone one further by making a device that folds open like one too.
Sony announced it is entering the tablet market dominated by Apple's iPad with not one, but two devices.
The tablets - called S1 and S2 - will use an operating system based on Google's Android 3.0.
And in what Sony hopes will provide a key selling point, the latter has two 5.5-inch displays that can be folded like a book. The S1 has a 9.4inch display.
Both will be Wi-Fi and 3G/4G compatible, Sony's Kunimasa Suzuki said during a press event in Tokyo this morning.
They will both allow the use of Sony PlayStation games and are designed for sending emails, social networking, and enjoying online content such as movies, music and electronic books.
'We offer what is uniquely Sony,' Mr Suzuki said after demonstrating how the S1 was designed with a tapered width for carrying around 'like a magazine'.
Sony did not give any indication of how much the tablets will cost or when they will be released.
The devices will connect to Sony's cloud-computing based library of content such as movies and music, as well as to PlayStation games adapted for running on Android and digital books from Sony's Reader store.
Sales of tablet devices are expected to quadruple to about 294million units between 2011 and 2015, with almost half that Android-based, research firm Gartner has forecast.
SONY S1 SPECS
- Android 3.0 Honeycomb
- 9.4-inch screen
- 1280 x 800 resolution
- 512MB RAM
- 32GB memory
- NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor
- Front and rear cameras
- WiFi and 3G/4G compatible
- Work as remote control on Sony products
- Price and release date unknown
SONY S2 SPECS
- Android 3.0 Honeycomb
- Two 5.5-inch screens
- Two 1024 x 480 pixel displays
- RAM unknown
- Memory unknown
- NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor
- Book-style layout
- WiFi and 3G/4G compatible
- Price and release date unknown
Mr Suzuki raised eyebrows in January when he told reporters at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that Sony was aiming for the number two spot in the tablet market within a year even though it had yet to put a product on the market.
The company has emphasised the need to differentiate its tablet from rivals, even if that takes time.
'Although it's a late comer in the market, it has potential as what you need is just one big uniqueness that can sell to customers be it design or whatever,' said Lee Sun-tae, an analyst at Meritz Securities in Seoul.
'By the same token it can be just one of another Android phones flooding the market amid intensifying competition.'
In a bid to tap that burgeoning demand, competitors including Samsung Electronics - whose Galaxy Tab is Apple's strongest competitor in the tablet market - and Motorola , LG Electronics and HTC are flooding the market with tablets running Android.
The announcement of Sony's key net-linking offerings comes as it tries to fix the outage of its PlayStation Network, which offers games and music online.
It is unclear when that can start running again. Sony has blamed the problem on an 'external intrusion' and has acknowledged it would have to rebuild its system to add security measures and strengthen its infrastructure.
Sony, which makes the Vaio personal computer and PS3 gaming console, has lost some of its past glory - once symbolised in its Walkman portable music player that pioneered personal music on-the-go in the 1980s, catapulting the Japanese company into a household name around the world.
It has been struggling against flashier and more efficient rivals including Apple's iPhone, iPod and iPad machines, as well as South Korea's Samsung, from which Sony purchases liquid-crystal displays, a key component in flat-panel TVs.
Shares in Sony, which unveils its quarterly results on May 26, fell 2.1 per cent this morning.
In iPhone's case, the exclusivity agreement goes far beyond the choice of service provider. Apple tightly controls the applications that are available for the phone through its iTunes store, and its decision to block a voice application from Google sparked an inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
"This is a replica of the open-versus-closed war of the IBM mainframe versus the Macintosh for the mobile space," said Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University. "And Google is settling in for a long war here."
So there you have it: three phones, back with a vengeance and a lot more polish. None is the iPhone, so you're missing out on the universe of accessories, not to mention the convenience of the iTunes music/TV/movie store. 
Social networkers, you may have just found your phone. 
And when someone calls — your brother, say — you see not only his photo, but also his latest status broadcasts from Twitter and Facebook. At the least, this display provides a built-in conversation starter; at best, you have advance warning about your caller's mood. 
Typing is faster on this screen, because you don't have to fully lift Finger A before pushing down with Finger B (using the Shift key is especially improved for this reason). But it's still not a true multitouch-screen, and using the Web browser is still slow and fumbly. Isn't the Web browser the primary point of an all-screen phone? Otherwise, why not get a regular BlackBerry? 
