Sony makes an attempt at a new product, it tries to capture the aura of both uniqueness and surprise in hardware, plastic and commercials.

So it has happened with the Sony tablet, which is not sold under the sub-branding “Vaio”, but under the trademark “Sony”.

If “Vaio” stands for notebooks, “Bravia” for televisions and “PlayStation” for gaming consoles, why is there no “Tabea” or “Bronko” for the new category of tablet PCs?.

The marketing as “Sony Tablet” could be seen as the high rank that the Japanese ascribe to the tablets.

But it’s more likely that the brand awareness “Sony” is to be directly radiated on the tablet. Later, when the tablet sales figures bear fruit and the products vary (screen sizes, application fields, etc.), an own brand might be created.

Sony is well advised with carefully entering the tablet market.

The early adopters among the customers, excluding those who are already iPad fans, have equipped themselves with an Optimus Pad, a Motorola Xoom or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. These iPad alternatives have been availablesince the fall of 2010.

The Sony S range now encounters a matured tablet market split up between Android and Apple iOS.

Web OS has disappeared from the market in the meantime. A deterrent example, that subsequently reinforced Sony’s decision for Android (here 3.1).

Had Sony developed its own tablet OS so late in the day, it would have quickly placed the S series on the sidelines.

We would like to present the Sony Tablet S and its hardware and software, and answer the question.

Is it just another Android tablet or a fresh alternative to the “established” tablets.

The 591 gram Sony S isn’t extraordinarily light in comparison to other tablets.

An iPad 2 (9.7 inch, 601 grams) is almost just as heavy, but has a lighter power adapter (95 grams rather than 139 grams).

The LG Optimus Pad V900 (8.9 inch, 623 grams) weighs a bit more.

TheSamsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v (10.1 inch, 574/65 grams) weighs slightly less and has an extremely light power adapter.

The online retailer has released no details ahead of Wednesday’s press conference in New York, but the device is reportedly called Kindle Fire, to tie in with its existing ebook reader.

Amazon is set to join the tablet wars as it launches a rival to Apple’s best selling iPad, a device that has made digital tombstones of all the competition so far.

If the Fire does prove to be an iPad rival it will pitch the brainchildren of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, two of Silicon Valley’s most innovative tech giants.

Against each other in a battle analysts say will present the biggest challenge yet to Apple’s dominance of the tablet market.

With so little detail available Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said he was reluctant to speculate too much. “But it feels like something big is about to happen,” he said.

The retailer is the biggest online books seller and the US’s second largest seller of music online after Apple’s iTunes, and it has been increasingly building up its online movies and TV sales and rentals business.

The company signed a deal with Fox this week that it said means it now offers more than 11,000 movies and TV shows available via its Amazon Prime service.

“Amazon has tremendous reach. That makes a huge difference,” says Gartenberg.

The retailer has a very different approach to Apple, he said, but that is what may make them Apple’s biggest threat to date.

Amazon is also competing with Apple to offer a cloud based media storage service that would allow customers to access anything they buy on any device connected to the internet.

Amazon has its own app store already and access to the purchasing habits of its millions of customers and their credit card accounts.

“The Kindle for Amazon was about selling books and magazines. Apple’s business is about selling devices. You are looking at very different approaches,” he said.

Amazon hopes its brand recognition and loyal book-buying customer base will enable it to do battle with Apple, which produced 75% of the tablets sold this year.