14 DAY TRIAL // Sony is one of those companies which, despite setting a goal as far as the tablet market goes, hasn't done anything concrete to achieve, though it looks like this situation might change over the course of the next few months.
If anything, the situation on the tablet market is only growing more and more intense as users wait in anticipation for things to get even more serious.
Among other things, Acer is about to start selling the Iconia Tab A100 and Intel hopes to score big with its Oak Trail CPUs.
All in all, even though Apple is dominating the slate market with its iPad 2 so hard that it is costing CEOs their jobs, the slate market is, nevertheless, getting quite a bit of hype.
That said, Sony is one of those that are more ambitious, even though they have yet to actually launch a tablet.
Now, however, it looks like things may finally be getting more clear, albeit just barely, with the estimated time of arrival for that first Sony slate being now set for the summer of the ongoing year (2011).
The US will receive the model, which will be loaded, unsurprisingly, with the Android 3.0 operating system, otherwise known as Honeycomb, from Google.
It is supposed to have a screen size of 9.4 inches and the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC (system-on-chip) as the platform on which every other piece of hardware is installed.
Quite possibly Qirocity media streaming, VAIO-type content functionality and PlayStation gaming features will be combined into one.
Unfortunately, nothing is known for sure, so it is hard to speculate on its prowess and functionality. Either way, in order to actually help Sony achieve its goal of snatching second spot in this field by the end of 2102, it will need a suitably impressive combination of performance and affordability.