Xperia tablet to get Surface-like keyboard, hidden dock connector

We’ve known about the upcoming Sony Xperia tablet for a while, and now we also know a fair bit about its accessories. To sum up the tablet first, it’s a fairly standard 10-inch Android device with a Tegra 3 chip, 8 megapixel camera, 1280 x 800 resolution, and every other cliché spec in the book. The design is the part of the tablet that actually stands out – kind of how it was with the last Sony tablet. It looks a bit like a document folder, where the top sort of “folds over” to the back, raising part of the back which seems to hold the speakers. 

The accessories that just leaked are also rather design oriented, and I wonder what Microsoft will think about the keyboard case. It looks very much like the Microsoft Surface keyboard, although I don’t exactly think you can claim ownership on a flat keyboard design. The Xperia tablet appears to have a hidden dock connector on the bottom, which puts the actual dock connector more towards the middle of the back side of the tablet – not at the very edge like most connectors. Both the keyboard case and the speaker dock have dock plugs that use this connector, creating the illusion of there being no connection at all because it’s hidden on the back. Since the keyboard connection is physical, it’s then possible to make the actual keyboard much thinner, since you don’t need a wireless module or batteries. Whether or not the resulting keyboard is comfortable to use is likely not a major concern, as long as it’s flat.

As for the speaker dock, the hidden dock connector system has a visual impact on it as well. The entire tablet is suspended from an arm attached to the round speaker, giving the impression that the tablet is hovering. It’s design all the way, and the lack of a 1920 x 1080 display panel on the tablet means that you’re giving something up by going with it instead of others on the market. I like the dock connector system, but I wouldn’t buy this over a Transformer TF700 or Galaxy Note 10.1.

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