Sony Tablet P launches in UK alongside Sony Entertainment Network Service

Japanese electronics manufacturing giant Sony has recently released its latest luxury device onto the UK market, in the guise of the Sony Tablet P. This handheld tablet PC is priced at £499.99, and with its folding dual-screen design the device appears to be a strategic step by Sony away from the ubiquitous iPad-clones currently flooding the market.

The Tablet P currently runs on Android Honeycomb 3.2, just missing out on Google’s much-anticipated Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Weighing just 372 grams and measuring around 13mm thick, the Tablet P packs away a 5 megapixel camera, VGA front-facing camera, 1GHz dual-core CPU, 4GB storage, two LCD screens with a resolution of 1024 x 480 and a pixel density of 206ppi, and featuring the same TruBlack technology used in the Sony Bravia TV range. The Tablet P is also PlayStation certified; meaning it also includes a slew of PlayStation classics.

Sony have heralded the Tablet P as a truly portable device, as the two 5.5” ‘clamshell’ screens fold together to create a device that can easily fit into a woman’s handbag.  And whilst on first glance, the Tablet P’s main focus seems to be a deliberate attempt to differentiate itself from the omnipresence of Apple products, on closer inspection; the Tablet P is perhaps more about content delivery than just its looks alone.

The Tablet P could be considered as an important cog in the Sony Entertainment Network (SEN) machine, acting as the perfect device for streaming content such as music, videos, games and e-books on demand. Just as the Kindle acts as a conduit to a whole host of Amazon’s products, the Tablet P will service the Sony Entertainment Network, helping to expose this relatively new arm of the global enterprise.

Although SEN’s music service has been available in the UK and Europe for a number of months, the launch of the Tablet P has almost completely coincided with the widespread launch of SEN’s video service throughout Europe.