Sony became the latest computer maker to toss its hat into the Android tablet ring, announcing plans for two models during a press conference in Japan.

The Japanese computer maker announced plans for two Honeycomb tablets–the 9.4-inch S1 and the S2, with its dual 5.5-inch screens. Sony said the tablets will be available globally starting this fall.

With the move, Sony will join a crowded field that includes Motorola, which led the Honeycomb parade with its Xoom, along with LG, HTC, Samsung, Toshiba and Acer, to name just some of those with announced plans. Meanwhile, Apple still dominates the field with the iPad, while HP and Research In Motion hope to tackle the tablet market with homegrown operating systems.

Both Sony models have built-in Wi-Fi as well as cellular options. In addition to the standard Web-browsing and other Android features, Sony is touting its tablets’ abilities to act as universal remote controls and connect to video and gaming services from the company.

The dual screens on the S2 allow users to combine both displays or use one for content and another for either controls or a virtual keyboard.

The company had been widely expected to cast its tablet fortunes with Android, following in the footsteps of its Sony Ericsson cellphone joint venture, which has bet on the Google operating system to power its smartphones.

The meeting comes as the $80 billion market for LCD TVs rebounds amid improving demand and tight industry supply. In recent years, Samsung overtook Sony to be the world’s biggest maker of LCD TVs by shipments. Sony relies on Samsung to supply key components such as LCDs for its Bravia flat-screen televisions.

“It was just a regular dinner meeting…no details of the [LCD] business has been discussed,” Samsung Electronics spokesman James Chung told Dow Jones. A Sony spokesman declined to confirm the reports.

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Sony (SNE) joined forces with the label by streaming his runway show on video site Vevo, projecting it on enormous Bravia screens and providing Vaio notebooks and “Bloggie” video cameras to reporters.

The commingling was perhaps better in theory than in practice. Plenty of flashbulbs popped, and others took photos with their iPhones and BlackBerrys, but few journalists and bloggers used the Sony-furnished devices. The event’s Twitter hashtag, “#WRastSony,” produced only a handful of tweets, with about half coming from the Sony Electronics account.

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Hence, Sony’s announcement that it’s making a big bet on…3-D TVs. CEO Howard Stringer is using the IFA Technology Show in Berlin to announce that Sony will make 3-D Bravia sets.

And 3-D Vaio laptops. And 3-D PlayStation3s. And 3-D Blu-ray DVD players.

No plans for a 3-D Walkman, though. (But wait!)

This is a recurring theme for Sony, by the way: Stringer also talked up 3-D in January at the Consumer Electronics Show. I still wonder about the actual demand for this; I sampled some new-fangled 3-D at CES and left underwhelmed. But the stuff I saw–a live broadcast of the college football championship game–was, admittedly, an experiment.

In any case, even if you believe Stringer’s assertion that consumers really love the new 3-D experience, there are some big hurdles before Sony (SNE) or anyone else in home electronics can capitalize on it. For instance:

• A looming format war, the same thing that kept Blu-ray from taking a running start at the DVD market.
• Ginormous prices: Sony hasn’t said how much its 3-D-enabled TV sets will cost, but the ones that rival LG go for something like $5,500.

If Amari can recall when that was Sony’s image, he has a good memory. Because Sony (SNE) lost its dominant position in consumer electronics to rivals in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. long ago and has yet to regain it.

And nowhere is that more apparent than in the the company’s videogame division, which really should be the shining star in Sony’s core electronics business. Sales of Sony’s Playstation 3 console fell 19 percent year-over-year in November, according to NPD. This while sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 rose eight percent and sales of Nintendo’s Wii doubled. U.S. consumers purchased two million Wii consoles and 836,000 Xbox 360s last month. But they bought just 378,000 PS3s.

Ugly news for Sony and for CEO Howard Stringer, who’s promised the company’s games division will turn a profit this fiscal year after two years of losses. Clearly, Sony’s going to have a tough time managing that. No easy task peddling the $399 PS3 to a public that would much prefer to spend $150 less on the Wii.

If Amari can recall when that was Sony’s image, he has a good memory. Because Sony (SNE) lost its dominant position in consumer electronics to rivals in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. long ago and has yet to regain it.

And nowhere is that more apparent than in the the company’s videogame division, which really should be the shining star in Sony’s core electronics business. Sales of Sony’s Playstation 3 console fell 19 percent year-over-year in November, according to NPD. This while sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 rose eight percent and sales of Nintendo’s Wii doubled. U.S. consumers purchased two million Wii consoles and 836,000 Xbox 360s last month. But they bought just 378,000 PS3s.

Ugly news for Sony and for CEO Howard Stringer, who’s promised the company’s games division will turn a profit this fiscal year after two years of losses. Clearly, Sony’s going to have a tough time managing that. No easy task peddling the $399 PS3 to a public that would much prefer to spend $150 less on the Wii.