Sony officially announced its long awaited Android tablet, Sony tablet S. Sony first revealed details of this on April 26 and officially launched the products Aug. 31 at the 2011 IFA conference in Berlin.

The Sony Tablet S will feature a 9.4-inch touchscreen display backed by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 SoC and Android 3.1. Also included will be a front and rear-facing camera, built-in Wi-Fi connectivity, an SD card slot and support for a micro-USB interface. It will include 5-megapixel main cameras that shoot 720p HD video, and VGA (0.3-megapixel) cameras that face the user for video chats. The Tablet S is all made of plastic and notably this is the first PlayStation tablet. Pinball Heros and Crash Bandicoot are included with the device out-of-box. The customized browser on the Tablet S supposedly loads Web pages much faster than the standard Android browser, through a function called “quick view.”

Along with the usual Wi-Fi radio, the S is also equipped with infrared and supports DNLA, which makes the S handy to have around the living room. It is preloaded with an universal remote app that lets the S centrally control your television and audio system even if your equipment is not from Sony.

The Tablet S will ship with Android 3.1 Honeycomb. Sony says it is “upgradeable” to Honeycomb 3.2. The Tablet S sports a 9.4-inch screen and weighs in at 1.33 pounds. The device is powered by a speedy processor, and the screen uses what Sony painfully calls “TruBlack” technology, a liquid-crystal display that the company says provides better contrast and reduces glare.

Additional features the tablet will offer include a three-axis accelerometer and a gyro sensor, which is used to detect rotation.

The Sony Tablet S device is available in both 16 GB and 32 GB versions, and will be sold at Sony Stores including online and other authorized retailers nationwide for about $499 and $599, respectively. A desk cradle will cost $39, and a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard $79.

Via Pcworld