Today, two new Honeycomb (Android 3.0) tablets, sort of. The single screen Sony S1 and the dual-screen Sony S2 were already announced in Japan earlier this year, so today's briefing, in front of a smattering of tech journalists at the Sony Club in Manhattan, was not a huge surprise.

What was surprising: the S1 and S2 (which are just codenames) still have no official launch date. There was no pricing information offered and no specs to dissect, just the announcement that AT&T will be the carrier for the 3G, dual-screened S2. The S2 will support 3G + Wi-Fi, as well as AT&T's 4G HSPA+ speeds. AT&T will offer pre-pay and post-pay plans, but no specifics were offered beyond that. The S1 is a Wi-Fi only tablet. Both tablets are Bluetooth-enabled and PlayStation-certifiedmore on that in a moment.

The S1 looks like a regular tablet with one twistits back panel is thicker on one end than the other, creating an angled view when it is set on a flat surface. The S2's clamshell design means the tablet can be folded down to half size and easily stored in a small bag or purse. Sony reps claim you can tuck it into a pocket, but that would need to be a seriously spacious pocket. The S1's screen size is 9.4 inches, while the S2's dual displays measure 5.5-inches each.

There were demos of the tablets' capabilities. Both feature Quick View and Quick Touch, two Sony-engineered enhancements of Android 3.0. Quick View offers what Sony reps admitted was the illusion of a site loading more quickly. Side-by-side, two S1 tablets, one in Quick View mode and one in regular Wi-Fi mode, loaded the same Web site. Indeed, Quick View loaded the site roughly eight seconds sooner than the other tablet, but the trick is rather simple: Quick View loads a Web page's imagery before loading Java Script, offering only the appearance of a fully loaded page. So, it's not actually loading the page eight seconds faster, but it's giving you visuals, and in the first eight seconds, that's probably all you need for typical Web browsing.

Quick Touch supposedly offers more fluid scrolling through menus and Web pages, but the demo merely showed a fluidity that Apple's iPad has had since launch. That said, do not have such speedy scrolling and gesture response, so this definitely falls in the "pros" columnit just seems a tad much to name it and call it a feature.

Possibly the best selling point for each tablet is the integration of PlayStation capabilities. Both the S1 and S2 have access to PS1 and PSP titles from the PlayStation library. In a cool demo (that we were unfortunately not permitted to photograph), the S2's dual screens displayed a game in the top screen while the lower screen became a virtual controller that mimicked PlayStation game controls. Both tablets come preloaded with Crash Bandicoot and Pinball Hero. The S2 also looked cool displaying e-books (which both tablets will also support), with one page on each screen.

Like the , the S1 has built-in IR port controls. This allows it to operate televisions, Blu-ray players, and other devicesand apparently not just ones manufactured by Sonymaking the S1 a semi-universal remote. Unlike the Vizio Tablet, the S1 has Honeycomb.

Sony's Qriocity, as well as Crackle, will come preloaded, and the S1 has the capability to "flick" movies you're watching on your tablet to a televisions screen, provided the TV is DLNA-compatible.

Most product announcements are coupled with press releases detailing product specs, but not this one. We don't even know pricing or when the tablets will be available, though it sounds like more information is coming our way in August, and that the tablets are being readied for the holiday shopping craze.

Also frustrating was Sony's insistence that we not take pictures or video of the demos of PlayStation games or the Quick View feature. When we were allowed to have hands-on time with the tablets, opening any app and taking photos was forbidden.

The subtle customization of the user interfacewidgets and apps have slightly different-looking iconscould slow down future Honeycomb updates, but perhaps Sony is better prepared to deal with this than Samsung has been with its customized UIs and Android updates in the past.

Sony and Adobe announced a program to encourage developers to make apps specifically geared towards the S1 and S2in particular, the latter. With two screens that can display different information, but only within the same app (meaning: you cannot look at two apps simultaneously on the two displays), the S2 is definitely the most unique Honeycomb tablet to hit the market. But if developers don't bite at Sony and Adobe's programwhich offers reward money for app development to the winnershow useful are those screens going to be? They'll only work for Sony games and apps if no one else designs S2-specific apps; every other app will be divided in half, it would seem, which could get annoying quickly.

This brings us to the biggest gambles: Sony, which is already super-late to market with its Honeycomb tablets and still has no launch date, is making some interesting design choices. The S1 is the thickest tablet we've seen. It resembles a tablet in a case with the cover flipped backwards except there's no case, it's all part of the shell. This has the effect of angling the tablet towards your face when set down flat and in horizontal mode. Sony claims the angle makes it easier to type on the tablet, and easier to hold, as well. Fair enough, but this thing is bulkyand the angle also makes setting the tablet down flat in vertical viewing mode quite awkward. The gamble of the dual-screened, foldable clamshell S2 is that, no matter how cool it is, there's barely anything in the Android Market that will translate well to this screen format.

As for the processor or screen specsor any specs at all, reallywe are still in the dark.

Check out our above for up close shots of the two tablets. Hopefully the next time we write about the S1 and S2, they'll have real names and prices, and we'll have review units in house.