Sony Xperia Tablet Z hands-on

One of the most intriguing devices at this year's Mobile World Congress was definitely the Sony Xperia Tablet Z. The legendary Japanese company has tried its luck in tablets before with the Tablet S and Tablet P, but even though those models weren't so bad, they failed to generate any significant buzz. But it looks like Sony isn't willing to give up. The manufacturer is back once again with a new, and this time we believe it has a much bigger chance for success.

The Xperia Tablet Z is a remarkable tablet for many reasons. First, we really like its design, as it's extremely thin and light... for the size, that is. And it's not a small tablet. The Tablet Z features a 10.1-inch display, so it's definitely among the bigger tablets out there. Oh, by the way, speaking of the screen, the device has a spectacular resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, which makes for the awesome pixel density of 224 ppi. This may not sound like much, but it's actually very good figure for a big tablet screen. In addition it's also powered by Sony's Reality Display technology and the Mobile Bravia II engine, so you can be sure that videos and pictures will look very well on the screen of the Tablet Z.

As we said, the device is quite light for its size. At only 17.46 oz (495 g), it really is among the lighter tablets in its class, which we really appreciate, because weight is extremely important in the tablet world. You know holding a big tablet with one or even two hands while trying to use it at the same time can be a bit difficult or tiring, so the lighter the weight the better.

You won't notice much customization with regards to the software running on the device. It comes straight with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and even though Sony has added a thing or two here and there, it's really nothing that can hamper your experience. The manufacturer has customized some icons, and has also added some sweet functionality like the small apps, which can be brought up from an expandable dock at the bottom of the screen. Think the mini-apps from Samsung's Galaxy Tab series. Another custom feature is the remote control, which can be used to control a compatible Sony TV.

While we were testing the device, we noticed that it had very little to no lag. Actually, it performed superbly, and this was reflected in the preliminary benchmark test that we ran. Running Quadrant Standard on the Tablet Z, we got a score of 7856, which is a great result for a device with that kind of screen resolution. The Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor under the hood is really doing a good job here, and with the 2GB of RAM available, it's just one very well equipped device.

Unfortunately, Sony hasn't announced any release timing for the Xperia Tablet Z, and we sure hope that it won't be long before the manufacturer launches the product on the market. For now, we're just very excited about it, knowing that it's so well built and appealing, and are definitely looking forward to testing a final, retail unit of the Xperia Tablet Z!