Sony Xperia Tablet Z: thinner than iPad mini but full-size screen

Sony has announced a new tablet for the Japanese market that’s thinner than the ultrathin iPad mini.

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z, as the device will be formally called, will be 0.27 of an inch thick. That’s just barely thinner than the iPad mini, which measures 0.28 inches thick.

The Xperia Tablet Z, however, will not be a small-size tablet like the iPad mini. Rather, the Tablet Z will have a 10.1-inch screen with HD resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels, according to stats released by Sony.

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Sony said the Xperia also will be waterproof and will have an 8-megapixel rear camera and Near-Field Communication technology to allow the tablet to pass files to other NFC devices simply by tapping them. It will be available in black or white.

Inside, the Xperia Tablet Z will have a 1.5-gigahertz quad-core processor and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the second most recent version of the Google mobile operating system.

The Xperia Tablet Z is scheduled to arrive in Japan this spring. Sony hasn’t said whether the device will be released in the U.S.

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