Sony is taking advantage of the Mobile World Congress stage to announce a plethora of new devices but now the Japanese OEM has released new information about the Xperia Z. We have already seen the Xperia Z announced in Japan, but we now have confirmation that this crazy-thin, premium Jelly Bean tablet will be coming to the United States in the near future. We don’t have an exact release date for the US version yet, but as soon as we get more information we will pass it along. There are no real differences between the US and Japanese versions of the device, and in case you missed the announcement last month, the specs are as follows:
- Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean
- 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU
- 2GB RAM
- 6,000mAh battery
- 8.1MP rear camera and 2MP front-facing camera
- DLNA enabled
- NFC
- PlayStation Certified
- Four stereo speakers
- 10.1 inch 1,920 x 1,200 display
- 32 or 64 GB internal storage and removable SD card slot
- Universal IR blaster
Certainly hardware that is worthy of a premium price tag. And the hands-on demos of this device have proven it to be slick, responsive and powerful. The addition of the IR blaster seems to be popular among this most recent generation of Android tablets. It will be interesting to see how consumers and developers use this added connectivity. If IR blasters were to become common on smartphones and tablets, we might see some interesting innovations in accessories in the near future. The battery should provide satisfactory life to the device, but until we have it out in the wild we can’t know for sure. It is always good to see more and more DLNA enabled mobile devices as well as TVs released every few weeks. This standard allows for the wireless streaming of content from a device to a supported TV with minimal effort.
The Xperia Z is a great addition to the lineup of full-sized next generation Android tablets, and it will be interesting to see if Sony can carve some market share away from the iPad in the US with its latest offering. Would you spend $499 for a sleek, powerful Android tablet? Let us know in the comments section below.