An amazing technology at MWC13 – P2i

Friday, March 8th, 2013 Tom Truong, Product Manager

I was surprised by one device maker at MWC last week. I hadn’t found them in the exhibit halls the first day, but inadvertently found them leaving one exhibit hall for another.

It was the Sony booth.

A year ago, none of their smartphones, tablets, or even consumer products excited me. The blogosphere didn’t exactly find much of a differentiator in Sony’s Xperia Android-based devices. Their tablets had the characteristic Android 4.0 lagged performance and the industrial design was supposed to be something like a thick plastic version of a folded open book.

This year has been refreshingly different. A different industrial design was also afoot. Sony can now boast one of the thinnest designs, with one more twist: water proofing and even some quick liquid immersion. Thanks to improved hardware and an Android OS that is now buttery smooth, performance was snappy and felt similar to an iPad.

I’m not a fan of the little plastic covers, but this was one sexy tablet to behold and to use. I’ll go back to the waterproofing though–I think this is evidence of innovation and leadership. While I love Apple products, their recent approach to water hazards was to make a sticker that turned red upon water detection to deny warranty claims.

Sony claims you can even dunk the device and operate under water. How does this work? I went digging a bit and ran into a company at MWC called P2i. I’m not sure whether Sony is using P2i, and the P2i rep wouldn’t confirm it, but here’s how it works on their website:

The P2i technology employs plasma enhanced vapor deposition processing to apply an ultrathin polymer layer onto all surfaces of a product. The process takes place under low pressure within a vacuum chamber at room temperature. The coating is introduced as a vapor and ionized. This allows for the development of the polymer layer, which forms a covalent bond with the product’s surface, making it extremely durable.

This technology doesn’t leave the device oily feeling, nor does it add any bulk to the device. At the P2I booth, they demonstrated this technology on a number of materials, including paper tissue. Check out what happens to water leaked onto a treated piece of regular tissue paper.

You can imagine the possibilities for devices–these are everyday companions to us, and now I’m excited about all the beach and water photos one would be able to take with this technology.

Want to hear about my top 10 list at Mobile World Congress? It’s coming soon!

Tags: tablet