Sony has announced the Xperia Tablet Z will start shipping worldwide in the second quarter of this year. The 10.1″ Xperia Tablet is based on the Xperia Z smartphone (pictured left), sharing the same material construction and “OmniBalance” design. Sony says the tablet is the “world’s slimmest and lightest tablet” in the 10″ class, measuring 6.9mm thin and 595 grams. The display is full HD (1920 x 1200p/16:10) with Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2. Opticals on the tablet include a front 2MP camera and 8MP rear camera with “Exmor R for mobile” back-illuminated CMOS.
As far as the operating system, the Tablet Z will launch with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and will be immediately upgradeable to 4.2 after release date. The tablet’s processor is a Snapdragon S4 Pro with 1.5GHz asynchronous quad CPUs and 2GB’s RAM — the first tablet from Sony to feature the SoC from from Qualcomm.
The Sony Tablet Z is also dust and water resistant (not yet for diving folks), and comes in either black or white designs with or without WiFi. Sony made the announcement today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Pricing on various models is not yet available.