If you’ve been eyeing Sony’s excellent Xperia Tablet Z since its release in May, there’s yet another reason to consider purchasing one: today, the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), Europe’s largest editorial multimedia organization, recognized Sony with the European Tablet of the Year award for the Xperia Tablet Z.

We reviewed Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z in June, and came away impressed. Though certainly pricy at $499, the 10-inch tablet has a number of unique features that help differentiate it from the rest of the pack: the tablet is water-resistant up to one meter (for 30 minutes), relatively lightweight at 494g, and almost up-to-date with the next-to-latest version of Android (4.2.2 Jelly Bean). That’s an amalgamation few Android tablets can best. Admittedly, the Xperia Tablet Z is packed with mid–range internals – the tablet’s powered by an aging Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU – but apart from benchmarks, the Xperia Tablet Z is perfectly capable.

As Xperia Blog notes, this isn’t the first time Sony’s been awarded exceptional device design. EISA named the company’s Xperia X10 mini European Mobile Phone of the Year in 2011, and in 2012, Sony was recognized with the European Camera Phone and European Green Smart Phone awards for the Xperia Arc and Xperia mini, respectively. Seems like a positive trend, one that hopefully continues. Keep up the good work, Sony!

Want to learn more about the Xperia Tablet Z? Check out our review of the tablet.