SourceCode: How Sony can take on the Android tablet space and win

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

It may not be the first, or the thinnest Honeycomb tablet but we're willing to bet that Sony's 9.4" inch entry into the tablet space, the S1, will be one of the most feature packed devices to hit the market this year. More than that, it will quite possibly be 'the one' to create its very own segment. Here's why.

Most of the Android slates we've seen offer either a media hub or an array of widgets and overlays to enhance the look and feel as well as add functionality but while some are cool, the majority of these feel incomplete and sparse. Some even have mini app stores that complement the Android Marketplace but the pickings in these company branded stores are slim at best.

The Sleeping Giant Awakens

Sony has its Qriocity music and movie streaming, it offers PlayStation Certified access to the library of PSP and PlayStation games, it has Sony Reader eBook ecosystem which was the first one to come to market long before Amazon's Kindle (given the S1's odd shaped was inspired by a folded magazine, eBook and magazine functionality is a given).

Sony has also been all about 3D these past two years so while we don't think 3D is a very compelling feature on consumer devices, we wouldn't be surprised if this, too, is leveraged by Sony with the tablets.

In theory, Sony's tablet should be able to do everything all the other Honeycomb tablets can do and much more. Aside from existing features on most of the Honeycomb devices, which are really just variants of the same 10.1" inch tablet, albeit with slight tweaks to the UI and functionality and variances in case design, Sony has an opportunity to leverage all its proprietary content and differentiate their tablet devices.

Even if it focused on one thing properly and made the S1 and S2 tablets the ultimate gaming tablets with the right feature-set, some compelling launch titles and exclusive Sony content, Sony would have set itself apart from the crowd.

Sony's already gone nuts with the daring  physical design, both of the Sony tablets look unlike anything anyone has seen before in this space but we think the designs have more to them than just a whimsical desire to be different.

There is some functionality attached to the S1 and the dual-screen S2, we just don't know what it is right now. 

Pivot time

Let's remember that of all the companies in the Honeycomb game today, Sony and Motorola are the ones who have the most experience creating devices. In terms of squeezing features into really small spaces, Sony has rarely been beat.

Just look at their discontinued VAIO P series of netbooks or their early VAIO UMPC's (Ultra Mobile PC's), nothing has really come close to the small size and feature set of these devices. Unfortunately, the downside to these miniturized consumer electronics has been their high pricing and that has to change.

Sony saw the tablet revolution coming, it wisely waited and watched its competitors stumble out into the open with first generation devices and now it is ready to come in and play its cards. Pre-orders for the S1 tablet are just a few weeks away. We should see units hitting the market by September.

Sony needs a win, big time and this might very well be it.

Pricing is a key strategy

For Sony to create a place for itself in tablets, pricing of these devices needs to be realistic and competitive. yes, "It's a Sony" but if has to be priced right and it needs to be available in as many places as possible.

In Canada, we're already seeing Honeycomb tablets nosedive in price, there are even some that slashed introductory prices days before their release date, but to no avail. Some companies are literally giving these things away in the hope that they will generate buzz.

Yet, there were no long lines, no gushing or triumphant customers running out of Best Buy or Future Shop waving their prized devices. The reviews, including many in this space, have been tepid at best.

Beyond impressive specs and form factors, it is hard to get excited about any device whose core functionality, the OS, is so shockingly undercooked and this is what Honeycomb tablet owners are finding out today. We're not getting the system updates and the quality of the app selection is just lugubrious.

 

Sony needs to price their tablets competitively and  focus on what makes their products unique. The games, the ebooks, the streaming content should be where they see their revenue coming from and not just  the hardware.

They also need to avoid the temptation of putting too much crapware on these devices that just muddle the OS (and as a result, make it difficult to update the device soon as Google pushes an OS revision). The Timescape and Mediascape overlays are cool and all but they work best for phones.

Run pure Honeycomb OS on your tablet so that users can get updates right away and simply offer your services like your store, eBooks, multimedia players as applications within the OS. Users will appreciate this.