Sony launched the Xperia Tablet Z earlier this year, but initially only in Japan. Now the company has announced the tablet will be available in other parts of the world and the device is available to pre-order via Sony's retail and operator partners as well as online channels.

The company announced via the press release that "The multi-award winning product - which recently picked up a Red Dot Design Award 2013 - has received the largest number of pre-orders of any Sony tablet to date."

Sony claims that measuring 10.47 x 6.77 x 0.27 inches and weighing 1.09 pounds, the Xperia Tablet Z is the world's slimmest and lightest premium Android tablet.

The tablet is showcased on Sony's U.S. website bearing a price tag of $499.99 and $599.99 for the Wi-Fi only 16/32GB models. Currently, the U.S. website does not indicate the price of the 4G LTE version.

The Xperia Tablet Z is also available on Sony UK's website priced at £399 and £449 for the 16/32GB WiFi only models. However, the Sony UK website also has the 16GB WiFi + 4G LTE version of the device for £499.

The Xperia Tablet Z is available in black or white color options but unfortunately, the white color is only available with the 32GB iteration of the device.

The new Xperia Tablet Z sports a 10.1-inch LED-backlit LCD, capacitive touchscreen with 1200 x 1920 resolution and 224 pixels per inch (ppi). A 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM powers the device.

The tablet is equipped with an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel HD front-facing camera. The Tablet Z also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, and microUSB port connectivity options. The tablet has a 6000mAh battery that offers around 1,270 hours of standby time and nearly 10 hours of productivity.

It will be interesting to see if Sony is able to attract customers to the newly launched Xperia Tablet Z.