Sony’s a bit overdue for a new tablet – while the Tablet P and Tablet S are only technically about six months old, they’re running on hardware that’s over a year out of date. we were wondering when a refreshed version would show up, and thanks to Blog of Mobile… well, we’re still wondering, but now we know it’s coming. The “V150″ device spotted running NenaMark benchmarks isn’t identified as a tablet, but with a screen resolution of 1280×800, it’s either that or yet another 5+-inch mega smartphone, and Sony’s design DNA doesn’t lend itself towards the latter.

A couple of things can be deduced from the early benchmark info: one, the device is using the ever more popular NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core system on a chip, and two, it’s running Android 4.0. The latter of the two is the most exciting, since Sony has been somewhat pokey when it comes to Android updates (not that they’re alone). Other than that there’s very little to go on, though if Sony’s planning a successor to its Tablet S that probably means a 10-inch form factor.

Sony has been somewhat lukewarm on the tablet form factor, taking months for the WiFi Tablet S and the AT&T 3G version of the dual-screen Tablet P to make it to the United States. While Samsung has roughly half a million variants and Asus is coming on strong, the electronics giant seems content to play mostly in the smartphone arena for now. That’s a shame, too: their unique addition of the PlayStation Store gives their tablets an edge for gamers. With a Tegra 3 processor, the V150 (which will almost certainly get either a single letter or lowercase proper name) could become a gaming contender.

[via UnwiredView]