Sony has officially announced its new flagship tablet, the Xperia Tablet Z for year 2013. The Tablet Z is a significant upgrade over the Xperia Tablet S, and runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS. The tablet is thinner then iPad Mini with a thickness of just 6.9mm.

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z sports a 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels augmented by Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine. the tablet is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip with 2GB of Ram and 32GB of storage memory with microSD expansion slot.

The Xperia Tablet Z features a  8.1MP Exmor R rear camera and 1 megapixel front camera.  Connectivity wise it features Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC and LTE support. The tablet is also said to be both waterproof and dustproof.

At just 6.9mm, Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z is slimmer than the iPad Mini which is 7.2mm. The Sony tablet weighs 495 grams. Another notable feature of the Xperia Tablet Z is the “S-Force Front Surround 3D” which is said to improve the sound from the tablet. The tablet is likely to come with a 6,000 mAh battery.

From the official images, the Xperia Tablet Z design resembles the recently launched Xperia Z smartphones at the CES 2013.

Sony Xperia Tablet Z

Sony Xperia Z tablet specifications

• 10.1-inch full-HD display
• 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro
• 2GB RAM
• 32GB internal storage
• 8 megapixel rear camera
•  1 megapixel front camera
• NFC and LTE support
• 6,000mAH battery
• Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
• 495 grams

Sony says the new tablet is intended for the Japenese market where it will hit this spring. Sony hasn’t revealed the official pricing or the global release of the Tablet Z, but is expected to be available in Q1 2013.