Trailer for the new Android tablets from Sony

My thoughts, after the jump.

Look, I get it. Ooh, aah. I want a tablet, and I’ve seen a few that strike my fancy from time to time. I even understand that it’s hard to differentiate when you’re in effect trying to redesign a rectangle with bells and whistles. I understand this but I have a problem with Sony. While I don’t agree with all the cooing about the S1’s sexiness, I appreciate it. I still don’t understand what that fold on the back is, and since these aren’t final I hope it’s gone. I love the idea of the S2 only if it’s small enough. My problem isn’t with Sony design. Sony has always been very good at designing devices thoughtfully if a little glossy.

My problem is with Sony pricing madness. I look at these devices and immediately start calculating how many beloved family members I will have to sell into slavery to afford this. Sony has this problem (that makes business sense but is still annoying). They make these premium devices even though Sony, as a brand, isn’t as premium as it once was. They shovel-feed the early adopters with more money than sense at an inflated price, and then let someone else control the rest of the market as they move on to the next piece of shininess. For a while this habit changed with the Playstation family. Before you say it, the PS3 cost the cumulative souls of an Asian village because it had to. It was sold at a loss for most of its life. However, Sony kept the habit up with their other consumer electronics.

Against all reason, I’m eying $1,000 for the S1 and $800 for the S2. I’m probably wrong, and have probably overshot, but it’s the cynic in me. They might have some commonsense left, but I err on the side of caution. Their Vaio notebooks no longer cost as much as Macbooks. They finally figured that one out. I have no reason to expect they’ll have to relearn the lesson in the tablet space. But then, I’ve come to expect little in terms of commonsense from Sony. With Sony tapping Kazuo Hirai for key positions, and him possibly succeeding Sir Howard, maybe we’ll got some of that Playstation sense throughout the rest of the company.*

I’m well aware that I went off topic there. I was supposed to give my thoughts on the trailer. So here it is. “Ooh. Aaah.”

*note: the realignment of the company would put all the consumer electronics under one roof so in effect, that’s already happening. The question is, whose approach will infect whom?