Sony embraces Ice Cream Sandwich with new Xperia Tablet, three smartphones

Sony embraces Ice Cream Sandwich with new Xperia Tablet, three smartphones:
Sony President and CEO Kaz Hirai took the stage at the IFA electronics show in Germany today to talk about the company's upcoming products—in addition to a new camera, a 4K TV, and new Windows 8 VAIO PCs (all of which we'll talk about in separate articles later today), the company also announced a new Android tablet and a handful of new Xperia smartphones that will all release between now and the end of the year.

Enlarge / The Xperia Tablet S measures 9.45" x 0.35-0.47" x 6.87" and weighs 1.26 pounds.

Sony

First up is the Xperia Tablet S, a 9.4" Android tablet with a 1280x800 screen; a 1.4GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor; 1GB of RAM, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage; and an 8-megapixel rear camera and 1-megapixel front camera. Sony's marketing plays up both the tablet's "splash-proof enclosure" that will protect it from water while being used in the kitchen, and the included IR blaster that you can use to control your TV and other set-top boxes—a similar feature was also included in Samsung's recent Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, among others. Numerous accessories are also available, including stands, covers, keyboards, and covers with keyboards. The Xperia Tablet S will be available on September 7 at a starting price of $400 for the 16GB model, $500 for the 32GB model, or $600 for the 64GB model.

Enlarge / The Xperia T measures 5.09" x 0.37" x 2.65" and weighs 0.31 pounds.

Sony

Turning our attention to the smartphones, Sony's new "global flagship phone" is the Xperia T, a 4.6" phone with a 1280x720 display. Its dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC provides UMTS HSPA+ and GSM connectivity as well as Bluetooth 4.0 and dual-band 802.11n support, and its speed should be similar other high-end Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III, the US version of which uses a comparable Snapdragon processor. The phone has a 13-megapixel camera that can shoot 1080p video, a 720p front-facing camera, and its 16GB of internal memory can be augmented with up to 32GB of extra memory via its microSD card slot. NFC capabilities are also included. The unit's 1850mAh battery is said to be good for about seven hours of talk time and five hours of video playback.
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