What’s the difference between a smartphone and a tablet? According to Sony, it may be as simple as the ability to make calls or surf the web over mobile broadband.
The company has just launched a WiFi-only version of its 6.4 inch Sony Xperia Z Ultra in Japan. The original Z Ultra is a phone. The new WiFi-only model is being positioned as a tablet.
While the Xperia Z Ultra is a bit smaller than most Android tablets, it’s closer in size to a Google Nexus 7 or Amazon Kindle Fire than it is to an iPod touch, so it makes sense to call it a tablet.
It’s also got the specs of a pretty decent tablet, including a 6.4 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, 2GB of RAM, a 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, 32GB of storage, a microSD card slot, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, and Android 4.2 software.
Sony says the tablet should get up to 7 hours of battery life when playing videos, 6.5 hours when surfing the web over WiFi or up to 100 hours of music playback time. The tablet measures 7″ x 3.6″ x 0.26″ and weighs about 7.5 ounces.
Like its smartphone counterpart, the Xperia Z Ultra tablet also has a waterproof and dustproof case with little doors covering most ports.
Sony plans to sell the tablet for about $500 in Japan. There’s no word on if or when it’ll be available in other regions.
via Engadget
I really wanted this vs the Nexus 7 because it fits in my hand better. At the phone price, it was definitely out of reach. Now, I’m not so sure. One weird thing is that all the local phone repair shops do Samsung and Apple, but none that I’ve seen do Sony. I don’t mind so much for cheaper products but, at this price level, it seems more compelling if I have options. … Still, it looks so much nicer than the Galaxy Note 3 …
While I really like the compact size, $500 is asking for too much. At that price, it will remain a boutique tablet like the Galaxy Tab 7.7.