Takes it into the mid-range tablet market where the original Asus Transformer lurks

Jan 3, 2012 14:43 GMT  ·  By

Sony has just decided to move the 9.4-inch Tablet S from the $500 (384 EUR) price range, currently occupied by the Apple iPad 2 and Asus Transformer Prime, into the mid-range market and cut $100 off from the original price of its tablet to bring it down to $399.

For this much money users will get the 16GB version of the tablet, while the 32GB version is listed on Sony’s US website at $499 (384 EUR).

The move follows a temporary $50 US (38.4 EUR) price cut announced on December 15 and takes the Sony tablet down from the Transformer Prime and iPad 2 territory, and into the land of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Asus Transformer or the Toshiba Thrive, according to engadget.

As far as specs as concerned, like many other tablets based on the 3.1 version of Google's Android operating system (also known as Honeycomb), the Tablet S is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip.

The rest of the specifications list includes a 5MP rear and a 0.3MP front facing camera, a full-size SD card slot, Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11 b/g/n wireless connectivity with DLNA support, as well as 1GB of internal memory and a non-removable Li-Ion 5000mAh battery.

The screen measures 9.4-inch in diagonal and it sports a native resolution of 1280x800 pixels.

Other than the standard features available in Google's Honeycomb 3.1 operating system, Sony's creation also boasts a couple of unique options, such as PlayStation game compatibility and an integrated infrared sensor, which works not only with Sony devices but with other brand products as well.

Furthermore, Sony has recently announced that the Tablet S will receive an update to Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, which software wise will take it on-par with other more advanced tablets such as the Asus Transformer Prime.