Sony rather likes the idea of its Xperia Z smartphone, so much so that it’s turning it into a tablet. Not just any tablet, though: one that’s waterproof and insanely thin.
The creatively-named Xperia Tablet Z was announced at Mobile World Congress tonight, and Sony is calling it the thinnest 10-inch tablet in the world.
The screen measures 10.1-inches, with the tablet measuring just 6.9mm at its thickest point. It weighs only 495 grams, and inside it’s packing a quad-core 1.5GHz asynchronous Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM.
The asynchronous processor means that each core fires up independent of the other cores for maximum power efficiency.
The Xperia Z Tablet will come in both cellular (4G) and Wi-Fi-only models, with the former packing 32GB of internal storage, and the latter 64GB. Both, however, will have expandable microSD storage.
The screen on the Xperia Z is right up there with the iPad 4’s Retina display. It’s got a 1920×1200 display with 324 pixels per inch and Sony’s Bravia Engine display tech at the back-end to make a pretty screen even prettier.
On the back you’ve got an 8-megapixel camera and up-front it’s packing a 2-megapixel camera.
As far as accessories go, you’ve got NFC, an infrared blaster for controlling your home theatre, four speakers for improved sound, a 6000mAh battery, Android Jelly Bean out of the box and it’s Playstation Mobile certified for all of your games.
On top of all that, you’ve got waterproof and dustproof certifications that mean you can leave it immersed in up to a metre of water for 30 minutes at a time.
No word yet on Australian pricing or a release date, but it’s fair to say we’re waiting on this one.
Update: Sony says the Xperia Tablet Z will launch globally sometime between April and June of 2013. Australian pricing details have not yet been released.
Stay tuned for our hands-on with the Xperia Z tomorrow.