The Sony Xperia Tablet Z is the company's latest premium tablet entry.
Well, that depends on your definition of premium.
It has a 10.1 inch IPS screen with a 1920x1200 resolution.
However, unlike the previous Xperia tablets which had smooth, metal backsides, the Z's body is plastic which kinda takes a few premium points away.
Also, I'm not a huge fan of the edge design- just
doesn't feel that comfortable.
However, the corners are nice and smoothly rounded.
The tablet is also a really light for a 10-incher and is the thinnest 10-incher I've yet seen-- allow me to do things like this.
And the Tablet Z's waterproofing allows me to do stuff like this.
What do you think of that?
You can submerge the Tablet Z in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes
or, you know, you could just run water over it for fun.
This is really fun.
There are 3 ports on the Z and as long as a door to each is snapped shut, water shouldn't be able to get in.
The 3 doors cover ports for the headphone jack, the microSD slot and an MHL connection which is kind of like a microUSB mixed with an HDMI connection.
There's a front face in 2 megapixel camera and a rear 8 megapixel camera.
Each camera
includes Exmor R tech that is supposed to allow them to take better pictures in low light.
While low light pictures technically do capture more light, the quality of the shots ain't all that great.
Pictures taken at normal lighting conditions however look fine.
The Z runs Android 4.1.2 and includes Sony's usual tablet software suite including video and music unlimited.
It's also a PlayStation certified, giving you access
to a PlayStation mobile games- games performance that bit better than the Nexus 10 with slightly higher frame rates in polygynal games, but game levels don't lower the spas.
Also, the [unk] doesn't have the kind of app downloading horsepower the Nexus 10 does in large apps- took noticeably longer to get to the system over wifi.
For $500, the Z gets you 16GB a storage, 2 good cameras and good performance.
If you feel waterproofing would come into handy
and are willing to pay $500 for an Android tablet?
You'll probably find it difficult to be disappointed by the Xperia Tablet Z. I'm Eric Franklin and this has been a First Look at the Sony Xperia Tablet Z.