Sony Electronics revealed their entire product line-up for 2012 at a launch event in Johannesburg, South Africa. The electronics manufacturer showcased video cameras, high-definition television sets, notebooks and even 3D digital binoculars.
Before the media converged to experience the new products for themselves, Dharam Lalai, Managing Director for Sony South Africa, spoke about Sony’s fourth quarter-loss in a row and what the company plans to do to rectify the situation.
“We have seen another quarter loss but we are implementing steps to increase business growth. We are aiming to revitalise the business, and while the world is grappling with the poor economy, we have a business to run”, he said.
Lalai also said that Sony will not change its strategy when it comes to new products. “Sony has been a company that creates never-seen-before products and that focus hasn’t changed. We’ll be bringing in the right products at the right time, and aim to eliminate price erosion and not hike prices.
Jason Smith, Product Marketing Head at Sony South Africa, said that although 2011 was a tough year for Sony, the company will be realigning itself more globally, with more products streamlined to connect to the Sony Entertainment Network (SEN).
“Sony creates more content and entertainment experiences than anybody else. Currently there are over 900-million Sony devices out there, with 94-million PlayStation 3 accounts. Most of the new televisions will have a button that will grant the user instant access to SEN,” he said.
Smith also revealed that South Africans will be able to get their hands on the second generation of S2 and P2 tablets in the second quarter of this year. “Besides that, our Ultrabooks will have a number of cool features, such as USB charging when the device is off. We’ll also launch a Network Media Player compatible with Google TV, but more details will be revealed soon”.
Apart from new consumer electronics, Sony will also release a home theatre system branded under the company’s 4K banner. The new 4K technology is four-times that of standard Full-HD resolution, producing a bigger image without picture distortion or loss of quality.
In their handicam range, the company will bring to market a handicam with a built-in projector. “The projector is great, as users will be able shoot videos and immediately project them onto a wall for viewing, and can project up to 100-inches,” Smith said.
For their Cybershot range, the latest digital camera received a heavy dose of hardware upgrades, and the cameras will have an 18M effective pixel size with Exmor R – while a good portion of them will have 30x optical zoom.
Gamers have not been forgotten, as Sony will release a 3D Head-Mounted display that plugs into their PlayStation 3 gaming console. The unit delivers 3D gaming images and surround sound to the user and will retail for about R9000.
All products will be available in South Africa from the second quarter of this year.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
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