Sony who is struggling in the Smartphone market via their relationship with Ericcson has made a very late charge into the difficult Android tablet market, claiming that they are determined to be the No. 1 tablet seller Down Under, behind only Apple.

 Sony who is struggling in the Smartphone market via their relationship with Ericcson has made a very late charge into the difficult Android tablet market, claiming that they are determined to be the No. 1 tablet seller Down Under, behind only Apple.

The Sony Android-powered Tablet ‘S’ will go on sale in Australian stores today.

The tablet  is claimed to offer access to millions of songs and movies through Sony Entertainment Network. It’s also is the first PlayStation-certified tablet, allowing users to download games straight from the PlayStation Store.

Sony who has a reputation for price Gouging appears to have made the same mistake as some other would-be players in the tablet wars – for instance Hewlett-Packard – by pricing its tablet identically with the wildly popular iPad; most of the others have found the only way to capture reasonable ales is to undercut Apple

Featuring a 9.4 inch display and Wi-Fi connectivity, the 598g Sony Tablet is available in 16GB and 32GB capacities – priced identically with Apple’s bottom two Wi-Fi-only iPad models at $579 for the 16GB version and $689 for the 32GB model.

There appear to be no 3G-capable models available from Sony at this stage.

The Sony Tablet S uses Android 3.1, and is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor. It will be available to purchase online at www.sony.com.au, as well as at Sony Centre stores and “selected” retailers from this morning.