Sony at IFA 2013: the Smartwatch 2, Smart Lenses, and more

The latest iteration of Sony's head-mounted display is somewhat obscured, deep at the back of the company's IFA 2013 booth, but that didn't stop me from paying it a curious visit. I'd never previously gotten the chance to experience this strange contraption for myself, and having recently taken a magical ride inside the Oculus Rift, I was keen to see what Sony had to offer as competition. Alas, my experience is best described as mixed.

Reaching the milestone of a third-generation product should mean the HMZ-T3 has the benefits of a couple years' of evolution and, indeed, the latest model has been subjected to a range of small nips, tucks, and improvements. You now have a pocketable battery pack, which tethers to the HMZ and helps lighten the load on your head. It can accept Wireless HD transmissions — which are then piped to the headset — or you can even plug in your smartphone via an MHL cable. In spite of the octopus-like arrangement of head-gripping gear, there are no actual headphones built into the HMZ, so you'll need a second cable, preferably jacked into a high-quality pair of over-the-ear headphones.

From a new Smartwatches to a "Smart Lens" that turns your smartphone into a camera — and even something about Ricky Martin. Watch Sony CEO Kaz Hirai introduce the company's new flagship Xperia Z1 and some intriguing new hardware — and stay tuned for Samsung's event later in the day!

Sony's Action Cam is rugged and boxy, but unless you're in grave danger somewhere you might be better off buying the $299.99 Sony Music Video Recorder (HDR-MV1). Mostly because it's just gorgeous — a beautiful, weird black and silver box that looks a little like a futuristic weapon or something James Bond might carry. (Though he's probably not big into taking video.) It essentially pairs the Action Cam's innards with a dual microphone array, which captures 120 degrees of broad, dynamic sound. Sony's pitching it almost exclusively to YouTube musicians — thanks to built-in Wi-Fi and NFC you can shoot and share all on the same camera — but for all but the most active users this might make more sense than your average GoPro or Action Cam.

We got to see and hear the results from a Music Video Recorder next to devices like the Zoom Q3 HD and even Sony's own Action Cam, and the results are impressive. The video looks good without being overwhelmingly impressive — it shoots 1080p video at 30 frames per second — but the sound is dynamic, broad, and actually has a sound stage unlike nearly any other device this small. As he brought it out, Sony's rep told us "probably the only thing Sony's been making longer than audio products is rice cookers." Sony must, at the very least, make really good-looking rice cookers.

As part of its big IFA 2013 event, Sony announced a number of new TVs, including this 65-inch LED monster. The real draw here is that it's a curved LED TV, much like the curved OLED sets that Samsung and LG introduced back at CES earlier this year. Of course, Sony's set is using standard LED lighting and not the higher-quality (and more expensive) OLED technology — so while it might not match up to Samsung and LG's curved TVs in terms of pure image quality, it's also significantly cheaper. The TV comes with the standard smart TV connectivity features and 3D capability, but also features eight angled front-facing speakers that Sony says can effectively simulate the surround sound experience. The $3,999.99 set is available for pre-order now at Sony's site, and the company expects it to ship by the end of October.

Berlin's weather this week may be unseasonably bleak, but the tech companies gathered for its annual IFA exhibition aren't leaving us out in the cold. Sony is starting up the major announcements with its new Xperia Z1, a 5-inch waterproof Android smartphone with an eyebrow-raising 20.7-megapixel camera. Outside of Nokia's entirely unreasonable 41-megapixel sensor in the Lumia 1020, this is as much pixel power as you're likely to find in a flagship smartphone device. Sony's sensor is also larger than average in physical terms, comparable in size to some of the company's point-and-shoot cameras, meaning it has a legitimate chance at succeeding in its goal to be the both the biggest and best among Android cameraphones.

Other than the larger Exmor RS sensor, Sony is also borrowing the BIONZ image processor and G Lens technology from its camera line, offering an f/2.0 aperture on the Xperia Z1. That's only part of the company's effort to distill all its technological leadership into a single mobile device — Sony's taking the Triluminos and X-Reality display enhancements from its Bravia TVs and bringing them down to size with the Z1. Triluminos offers a wider palette of colors than conventional screens, and indeed looks stunning on Sony's HDTVs, but — as with the Xperia Z Ultra, which got the same tweak earlier in the year — the new Xperia Z1 doesn't have a terribly impressive display. The problem is that Sony consistently opts for cheaper LCDs than its mobile competition, which shows in the limited viewing angles and washed-out colors on its handsets.

At IFA in Berlin, Sony's taken the stage to announce three new additions to its lineup of VAIO PCs. They're three radically different devices for radically different users, but from their 1080p touchscreens to their shape-shifting form factors, one thing is clear: Sony can turn anything into a tablet.

The new VAIO Flip PC, part of the company's lower-end Fit line, joins a breed of laptops that use innovative hinges to twist, flip, and torque into other shapes. The Flip uses a fulcrum about half the height of the laptop itself, which normally looks like part of the lid. Push backward on the top of the screen, though, and the display rotates over the base, flipping over and docking again facing away from the keyboard. You can lay it down on top of the keys and use the Flip like a tablet, or use it display-out with the base as a stand. You get all the viewing options as a device like the Lenovo Yoga, but with a more complex (and slightly less sturdy) mechanism.

The rumor that once seemed too wild to be true has just become an official reality with Sony's announcement of the new QX Smart Lens series of smartphone accessories. These so-called lens-style cameras contain almost all the hardware you'd find in a Sony point-and-shoot — a zoom lens, image sensor and processing chips, a battery, stereo microphones, and even their own memory card slots — but omit the inclusion of a viewfinder. That role is to be performed by your smartphone, which connects via Wi-Fi and is used to control the Smart Lens and share the resulting images out to the world.

First announced in June and now ready for its retail release, Sony's SmartWatch 2 continues an unfortunate trend in smartwatches: the materials and design are getting fancier, but the watches aren't becoming any smarter. I got a chance to try one of the new SmartWatches out ahead of this week's IFA showcase in Berlin, and while it delivers the usual set of smartphone-connected apps and options, it remains a device with distinctly limited appeal.