Sony’s dual screen 'foldable' Tablet Teardown & Legacy

Sony's folding tablet from 2011 was ahead of it's time, and also way behind. Doing a mild teardown on a non-working unit, then contemplating what this is telling us about dual screen devices.
What is the legacy of the Sony Tablet P?

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Video of the LCARS Tablet living sculpture, currently available for free on Patreon.

MrMobile [Michael Fisher]
ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo Review: Every Laptop Should Have Two Screens

MobileTechReview
Microsoft Surface Duo Review

[ChristianStout]

I have an LG dual screen phone and while it does have drawbacks, like being heavy and having poor battery life, having _true_ multitasking in an Android device is a game changer. Now that LG is out of the phone market, I'm looking at a Surface Duo next.

[GingerBradMan]

the gold one is likely bricked at the bootloader level it was pretty common for people to try to install custom firmware on old android devices

[samwilliamson]

Nice upload - thank you. It’s sad when unique devices like these are shelved and no longer supported. Good luck with the parts swapping / diagnostic testing..

Really liked the comms panel and holodeck references at the end..

Other alternatives include ‘computer; Arch!’

[TurboBass]

Make it flat, have the hinges point to the inside, would have been the OG Z Fold.

[thumbtak]

I like using dual screens with work related. I will use one screen for documents and the other with an internet browser. This works with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Another idea is when chatting and watching a video. So, for me, dual screen devices, like a dual screen cellphone, has a place in my daily life.

[gentlemangeek]

Fascinating, big fan of the Trek references in several of these videos.

[dotnickcommaone]

Sony at that time really had a bunch of weird mobile devices, there’s the Tablet P, the Xperia Play(the one with the gamepad)and the Xperia Ray(tall looking design), one common thing is that they all failed in some ways, oddly enough

[Sashko_Dee]

I'm fairly certain that the golf game is a Japanese version of Hot Shots Golf 2 for the original PlayStation. Like, it's literally the PlayStation version run through a Sony made emulator. I had the Xperia Play that came with the copy of Crash Bandicoot shown in the demo reel. Someone figured out a way to inject disc images into the apk so you could play other games which made sense at the time as the Xperia Play wasn't powerful enough to run third party PSX emulators.

[leonidas]

I don't mind the bezels on something this size since they help you hold it without covering the screen. But they should have used this space for game controls, front facing speakers, or a blackberry style IR trackpoint

[Galax]

They really wanted to make a x86 based tablet. The WiFi card is actually plugged in With a mPCI E connector thats a PCIe x1 1.1 Bus that You can find on any Laptop around The time

[IntriguedLioness]

I nearly purchased one when they were discontinued. I do not collect most tech as my lifestyle has led to me living many places/continents. I can store small tech even with my many moves. Walkman, iPods, Newton, Jornado etc. Every phone I've ever owned.

I often shopped Sony Galleria and these where $50 When discontinued. $50 One of my few regrets.

[graealex]

That was fast. Thank you!
And btw. - am waiting for the Microsoft Surface Duo to get picked up by mobile phone carriers here, so I can get it with my contract. I think it's a really cool idea, and a very cool implementation.

[swc]

I remember this thing but I never saw it in stores. However I did see the Libretto W100, that was quite cool, but the software was not caught up to the hardware at that point, android 3 wasn't even out yet. If it was only a year or two newer it would have been way better.

[RetroGadgetMan]

Great video. I'm here as I just bought one of these that was working fine, then suddenly the screens faded and it turned off like in the movies when they show interference with computer screens. It's now just doing what your faulty one is doing, backlights only and occasionally flickering. Absolutely gutted. Have you managed to find out the fault yet? Thanks in advance.

[Thatguy]

I had the Sony tablet S. I'm still pissed as Sony stopped updating it less than a year after release for their Xperia tablets. They also never unlocked the bootloader, so it could never be fully rooted.

[MajimaEnjoyer]

Sony is always ahead of its time its sad that their older products never got to see the light of day because they were too early to the party.

PSP is a good example

[PashaDefragzor]

2 small screens split into 1, they should have enable and disable buttons or options. I think it is a very great idea, especially for a portable setup in a combination of Notebook and thunderbolt. Currently I have 2 27' displays and huge PC and my next setup will be 1 27' and additional portable tablet (probably foldable) + notebook with a thunderbolt and external video card + custom miniATX for a multiple tasks. It's much more flexible to have portable devices and clean file hierarchy. Current portable devices is powerful enough

[bramvandenbroeck]

I think for nintendo ds emulation this device would be more than perfect :p

[Ithirahad]

I wonder what kind of hardware we could cram in that neat mesofuturistic chassis these days... I actually dig the vibe, if not the actual implementation and those weirdly uninhabited giga bezels. (Could they really not have stuck a hardware home button in there?)

If it stopped pretending to be a folding display and admitted that it was two screens, I feel like one could get some serious mileage out of a modern clone of this thing. Perhaps all of that chassis space could be occupied with batteries, big beefy beautiful antennae, and some fancy sensor package, and we could have ourselves a real-world Tricorder. Bonus points if it vertically slots into a neat oval-looking charging dock... Personally I'd probably splitscreen Discord and YouTube/a game, or a browser and a word processor, or... really, all of the things I use dual screens for on desktop.

[datachu]

This thing is literally a Nintendo DS running android lol.
It would be great for DS emulation I bet. Sad that it's been so forgotten, and stuck running an ancient version of Android.