Sony Xperia Tablet Z unboxed, in the flesh

Just before we left Taiwan last week from the week-long Computex event, we scouted around for some gadgets to bring home and one of the items on top of our list was the Sony Xperia Tablet Z. Unfortunately, we didn’t push thru with it since we couldn’t withdraw any cash from the local ATM.

To quell the frustration, we just looked for a locally available device and reserved a unit from VillMan right after we got back.

We’ve been eyeing this tablet for the longest time because it’s the first tablet to have IP57 certification, like the Xperia Z. We also own the previous Xperia Tablet S and loved the built-in remote/IR blaster.

The Xperia Tablet Z is so thin (6.9mm) is also the thinnest tablet we’ve seen, even thinner than the iPad mini which is already at 7.2mm.

The design of the Tablet Z is very similar to the Xperia Z smartphone — all-glass front panel, rubbery matte back panel, and a combination of glass and polycarbonate frame. The tablet also reminds us of the BlackBerry Playbook, only thinner and looking more elegant.

Like the Xperia Z, the Tablet Z has hidden ports so it’s safe from water and dust — volume rocker, power button and 3.5mm jack is on the left side, micro-USB and microSD card slots are at the bottom side, while the IR blaster on top.

Beside the compartment for the microSD card is another slot which is left empty but could probably be the location of the microSIM card for the LTE version.

The full HD panel looks really good, the bezel on the left and right sides are a bit thicker than the top and bottom in order to make room for your hands when you grip them. Both the 8MP rear camera and the 2.1MP front-facing camera can record full HD 1080p videos.

The speakers are found on the sides of the unit, flushed towards the bottom end, and gives really good quality sound. The maximum volume is loud enough and unimpeded due to the positioning of the speaker grills.

The unit that we bought was just the WiFi-only model although we were actually looking into the LTE variant (costs Php4k more in the gray market).

Sony Xperia Tablet Z specs:
10.1-inch full HD display @ 1920×1128 pixels, 240ppi
Mobile Bravia Engine 2
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 APQ8064+MDM9215M 1.5GHz quad-core processor
Adreno 320 graphics
2GB RAM
16GB/32GB internal storage
NFC
HSPA+/LTE 100Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
up to 32GB via microSD card
8.1-megapixel Exmor R camera
Li-Ion 6,000mAh battery
Android 4.1.2 Jellybean

Sony Philippines has yet to officially launch the Xperia Tablet Z in the Philippines. It sells for $499PHP 29,284INR 42,290EUR 475CNY 3,632 in Amazon so we’re hoping it would be close to that when they price it in the local market. Watch out for our full review in a week or two.