We heard about a new Sony slate back in January, but we’ve finally come away from our first real encounter with the newly announced Sony Xperia Tablet Z at Mobile World Congress. The tablet brings a number of new features to the table, many shared with the upcoming Sony Xperia Z.
Sony highlighted that the device itself is one of the thinnest, if not the thinnest tablet in the market and in the hand it feels both incredibly light (at 495 grams) and wonderfully svelte at just 6.9mm. As well as a thin profile the Tablet Z packs a 10.1-inch WUXGA (1920×1200) HD LCD panel with the company’s Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 helping push out better colour and contrast levels.
The visual enhancements aren’t the only thing shared with Sony’s new smartphone; the Xperia Z, as the brawn inside the Tablet Z is the same 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor adjoined to 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 320GPU, all of which culminate in a punchy user interface and flawless Full HD video playback.
Some of the more specialist features in the Tablet Z include and I.R. remote which when combined with a smart TV app can enable the user to control their TV and view an EPG all from the device itself; a feature which Sony are naming TV SideView. There’s also the newest iteration of Xperia Link which can direct calls and texts from your Sony smartphone via Bluetooth to the tablet and then allow for acceptance of the call from the tab or even the option to reply with an automated text response.
As it’s a 2013 device, the Sony Xperia Tablet Z is the second product to utilise the company’s OmniBalance design keeping a squared aesthetic and reflective sides, although unlike the Xperia Z smartphone, Sony have wisely endowed the Tablet Z with a satin-finish texture back which is far less susceptible to fingerprints. Holding the tablet whilst watching media has also been taken into consideration, with four speakers so that however the tablet is held, sound will always be heard without being obscured.
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z should arrive mid-May this year following MWC, with pricing starting at around £400.
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