Japanese electronics giant Sony has unveiled a waterproof tablet touted to be the world’s thinnest at 0.27 inches thick, edging out the 10-inch Toshiba Excite 10 LE.
The device, dubbed Xperia Z, weighs 495g (1.1lb) and is said to beat Apple’s iPad Mini by 0.1 inches in thickness. It is Android 4.1-powered and comes with a 10.1-inch screen.
Xperia Z also comes with a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor from Qualcomm and 2GB of RAM, has a storage space of 32GB, a Micro SDXC card slot, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front camera, and a built-in LTE connectivity.
“It’s a good product and on the face of it, it should do well, but it is hampered by a potential squeeze on the larger tablet segment as a lot of consumers and other manufacturers are moving to the smaller 7in-to-8in form factor – in part because of their cheaper price,” David McQueen, principal analyst at the Informa Telecoms and Media, told the BBC.
McQueen said the success of the Sony tablet would ultimately be determined by how much it will cost, and whether it will come bundled with some of Sony’s content in music, movie and gaming.
However, Sony might have anticipated some of these expectations from customers as it installed a Walkman music app, a photo editor and a slideshow that automatically selects appropriate music.
Sony said the device will be officially released in Japan, and expects to give more details on the world release at the Mobile World Congress scheduled to take place in Barcelona from February 25 to 28, when other companies will be announcing the launch dates for their devices for 2013.
