Posted February 26, 2013 by Javeria Mohsin Ali in Tablets

Sony’s Tablet Z – the world’s first waterproof, thinnest and lightest tablet launches

Yesterday, at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sony showed off its newest offering – the Tablet Z. It’s officially the successor to the Xperia Tablet S and bigger sibling to the Xperia Z smartphone.

Aside from a beautiful design -a matte, soft rear panel that looks great against the deep, shiny black of the 10.1-inch screen- Sony’s new tablet is completely water proof, able to be immersed in 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes without any adverse effects. The tablet is also astonishingly thin at just 6.9mm (Apple’s iPad Mini clocks in at 7.2mm.)

As good as it looks, it packs an equal punch under the hood as well, with 4G LTE, a 1920×1200 display, the latest 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (along with a microSD slot for expansion). There’s an 8.1MP rear-facing camera for the camera enthusiasts too.

The Tablet Z will run Android 4.1 Jellybean at launch, but Sony promises a timely update to 4.2. It also has a number of Sony technologies baked in: Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2, One-Touch NFC functionality focused on easing content transfer, and a suite of Sony apps.

As if that weren’t enough, the new Tablet will also come loaded with Sony’s SidePlay, able to turn the Tablet Z into a universal remote courtesy of the built-in IR blaster, and allowing users to browse TV listings, reviews, twitter feeds and more. Hopefully this will be available for use in the UAE as well.

After listing all these impressive specifications, the Sony blog assures us the tablet will carry an agreeable price tag: $499 for the 16GB version, $599 for the 32GB version when it goes on sale in the US in Spring, which seems quite reasonable for this competitive piece of gadgetry. It’ll be available in both black and white models, and you yourself could own the world’s thinnest and lightest tablet in spring, with local reps confirming that the Xperia Tablet Z will arrive in the Middle East early April to May.