The tablet market is, if anything, all but saturated with competitive products. It is at best littered with the embodiment of what seems much like a weeks’ worth of research and development all pumped into a rather cluttered selection of tablet choices. When it comes to Sony, they are by no means a brand I would lump into this group of manufacturers that has been putting out sloppy work for a quick buck. With that being said, they also haven’t been giving us a reason to camp outside our local electronics store to pick up the latest and greatest. This was true with Sony’s Tablet S from last year. It wasn’t really a high end tablet and the only innovative thing I saw come out of it was there take on the design of the body, in a folded back style resembling the pages of a book, and the front facing camera which was stepped up to a 3mp quality. Rather unheard of in mobile devices period. The display was fairly standard(1280×800) and the ram was 1gb, nothing new. The one great piece of hardware here was the tegra processor.
It’s a new year however and it seems like Sony might be looking to get back into the competition with a newer tablet model. The FCC database shows that they just received a device that is listed as the SGPT1211,(the tablet s was the SGPT1111) which is actually one of six different devices in all. The filing lists 5 other devices, the SGPT1221 and 1231 for the US, and variants of those three for Canada. The SGPT1211 is specified as having an all-aluminum frame design. The body will be made from AL5052 which is an aluminum-magnesium alloy, and will be sandblasted, anodized and laser printed to give it a sleek look on the outside. Definitely a step up from the plastic frame design from last year’s Sony tablet. If they were to partner that aluminum frame with a high quality display and the latest nvidia tegra processor then it could be a tablet worth looking into. The FCC is also said to be testing out 2.4Ghz/5Ghz dual band 802.11 a/b/g/n wifi for this device so heres to hoping that we will see this feature once it hits store shelves. No actual specs for the device are known at the moment besides the material that they will be using to construct the outer body, but we will update you with information once we know more about this tablet ourselves. I personally have always had great luck with Sony products whenever I owned one so if this things comes to consumer release with some heavy firepower it just might be on my radar. What do you guys out there think? I know it’s really too early to tell, but could this tablet possibly bring Sony redemption for some of you if they bring some decent specs to the table?