Sony has announced its latest flagship smartphone at CES 2013 with its Xperia Z, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 1.5 GHz S4 Pro processor.

According to Sony, one of the phone’s major selling points is its water resistant coating that allows it to survive after having being submerged for up to 30 minutes in water that is up to one metre deep.

An NFC chip within the device that allows users to share photos, music and videos with compatible Sony devices lets users play back video footage on their TV set by tapping the phone against it.

The new device also features:

•  A 5-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 display
• 13-megapixel camera with HDR video capture
• 4G LTE connectivity
• 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage
• A new battery STAMINA mode to increase standby times by four times

In addition to the waterproof mobile phone, Sony also introduced waterproof headphones with a built in MP3 player, the Walkman W273.

The Sony Xperia Z is expected to be available in March of 2013.