Sony Xperia Tablet Z officially unveiled

Sony has officially announced the rumoured Xperia Tablet Z ahead of an expected carrier reveal in Japan.

Last week we saw rumours pop up twice concerning the new slate, including a spec line-up and the suggestion that Japanese network DoCoMo would announce it locally on January 22.

Now though, Sony itself has pre-empted that launch and this is the first time we’ve seen images of the device.

It’s looking pretty impressive to say the least with a highly angular design and a waterproof and dust-proof chassis that’s only 6.9mm thick while weighing in at 495g.

It’s a 10.1-inch tablet with a 1920x1200 pixel WUXGA resolution for its touch display, which also feature’s Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine 2, as seen on the Xperia Z smartphone where it delivers punchy, colourful and sharp visuals.

Sony has still left a little bit of info in the dark, for example we know it’ll have a Qualcomm 1.5GHz quad-core chip, but we don’t know exactly which model. That said, the clock speed and the fact that it features 2GB of RAM would suggest it’s a Snapdragon S4 Pro and should therefore also be sporting an Adreno 320 graphics processing unit (GPU).

The rest of the spec lines up more or less with what we’ve seen leaked already: NFC, Wi-Fi and 4G LTE capability are all included.

It’ll also have an 8-megapixel primary camera with a Sony Exmor R back-illuminated (BSI) sensor. Sony’s blurb doesn’t specify the new Exmor RS sensor, however, but the company does say it can cope very well with low-light conditions and has automatic modes optimised for quick ‘point and shoot’ style photography.

Sony also revealed the Xperia Tablet Z has ‘S-Force Front Surround 3D’ (bear in mind this is Google’s translation from Japanese) which is pitched as some fairly nifty audio technology – given Sony’s electronics and audio pedigree we wouldn’t be surprised if this was high-quality stuff.

Software is Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with the Sony UI on top and the device, apparently also known as ‘Kara’ rather than the previously leaked ‘Kona’, will come in both black and white variants.

Again there’s no indication of pricing or availability but we have a strong suspicion Sony will make this model available globally.

How the company plans to pitch the device against the iPad, Google’s Nexus 10 and the avalanche of Windows 8 devices is anybody’s guess.

Expect to see more of this slate at Mobile World Congress at the end of February.