It's fair to say that the past 12 months were not the greatest for Sony. The Japanese firm is delivering a $1 billion net loss for the financial year to 31 March, has flogged off its Vaio PC business and is “restructuring” its Bravia TV arm in a way that suggests that it might not be around indefinitely either.
But like a tech phoenix, Sony is immolating older-fashioned parts of it business in declining markets — you can’t give away PCs these days and TV sales are in a slump as punters wait for a reason more compelling than 3D and Netflix streaming to shell out — so it can rise anew with its cutting-edge PlayStation and Xperia brands. Now the latter line has been bolstered by the arrival of the Xperia Z2, a slick, light Android tablet unveiled at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress industry expo.
This month’s Thinnest Tablet in the World at a mere 6.4mm deep and from 426g, the Z2 is Qualcomrn Snapdragon 800 quadcore powered, with a substantial 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage plus a microSD card slot to add more. It also continues the firm’s slightly idiosyncratic obsession with water-resistance. This time, a full 1P58 waterproof rating has been achieved, letting you dunk the Z2 for up to 30 minutes in l.5m of water, which in our recent weather is pretty bloody handy.
Gaming is another Ace in Sony’s tablet pack and the Xperia Z2 not only has an Adreno 330 GPU to boost gaming performance, it also offers compatibility with PS3 Six-axis controllers, with PS4 pad support to follow. Ten games from PlayStation Mobile form a further enticement to garners, and Sony’s also throwing in a 30-day free trial of Music Unlimited, its Spotify rival, as well as five movies downloads from Video Unlimited.
The firm's Bravia expertise has been mined well for the Z2’s display. The scratch-resistant tempered glass has a fingerprint-resistant coating and Live Colour LED tech to increase the color range, giving, Sony says, the widest colour spectrum of any current tablet.
Despite shaving 0.5mm off the chassis, the Z2 carries the same 600mAh lithium polymer battery as its predecessor, giving around ten hours of multimedia use on a full charge or 100 hours of music listening. Audio performance has been improved, too, we’re assured, while accessories in the pipeline include a Bluetooth keyboard-cum-cover, a wireless charging pad and a noise-cancelling headset.
There’s no doubting Sony has turned a corner over the last year when it comes to tablets, but it still hasn’t pose much of a sales threat to Apple so far. But with its attention now laser-focused on mobile devices, the next 12 months could see one of tech’s most enduring brands blooming in its newest markets.
No comments:
Post a Comment