Sony debuts Xperia Touch projector, an Android-powered computer that turns any surface into a touchscreen, coming to select countries in spring for €1499
Tablets - they're just not very social, are they? Cherlynn Low / Engadget : When we first caught a glimpse of Sony's Xperia-branded projector concept … Michael Simon / Greenbot : Sony's Android-powered Xperia projector turns any flat surface into a touch screen Sherri L. Smith / Tom's Guide : Sony's Wild Projector Makes Anything a Touchscreen John Anon / AndroidHeadlines.com : Sony's Xperia Touch Projector Is Coming To The US Britta O'Boyle / Pocket-lint : Sony Xperia Touch: The €1499 protector that puts Android on your kitchen table Joe Fedewa / Phandroid : Sony's Xperia Projector turns any surface into a touchscreen Alexandra Vaidos / Softpedia News : Sony Announces Xperia Touch Projector With Android Nougat Tyler Lee / Ubergizmo : Sony Unveils Xperia Touch Android-Powered Projector Tweets: Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Very Cool. Full touch projection from Sony. But $1500 http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The Xperia Touch is the first of the four concept devices Sony teased at MWC 2016 — alongside the AI-powered Xperia Ear, Eye, and Agent — to actually reach shelves, and it arrives with a flagship-phone-plus price tag of €1499. That makes it less a tablet replacement than a bet that Sony can sell an entirely new interaction category under the Xperia brand.
It also isn't the first Android projector: ZTE's Spro 2 paired Android with projection and a hotspot back in 2015 at a carrier-subsidized price, so Sony is entering a category someone else validated — but at roughly an order of magnitude higher price, betting on short-throw touch sensing rather than affordability.
First-order effects
- Buyers in the launch countries face a €1499 decision on an unproven category this spring, with the Xperia brand carrying the risk rather than a new sub-brand.
- ZTE's Spro 2 line now has a premium-segment rival, forcing the comparison onto what the extra cost buys: surface touch input versus plain projected display.
Second-order effects
- Android gains a new device class with no established app conventions, so developers decide whether kitchen-table-sized canvases get purpose-built software or stretched phone UIs.
- A working Xperia Touch gives Sony cover to push its remaining 2016 concepts — Eye and Agent — toward production, since the hardest piece (turning surfaces into interfaces) is now shipped hardware.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across Sony's own lineup — the Xperia Pro later repurposing a phone as an external monitor, Sightful's Spacetop replacing a laptop screen with a headset — the industry is moving toward decoupling the display from the device, with projection and AR as the two competing ways to do it.
The trend: Computing is drifting from fixed screens toward projected and virtual surfaces, with Sony's Xperia Touch and rivals like ZTE and Sightful testing whether users will pay hardware-flagship prices for displays made of light.