Sony have welcomed to the world two new smartphones that are clearly keeping with the Xperia S design: Xperia P and Xperia U. Going by the press image above you can see that Sony certainly weren’t joking when they said they were sticking with their iconic design work.
Xperia P
The Xperia P has a 4-inch display which is also the first to make us of Sony’s ‘White Magic’ technology that makes the display easier to see in sunlight. It’s powered by a 1GHz Dual-Core CPU and runs Android 2.3 ‘Gingerbread’ though Sony is assuring everyone that Android 4.0 will become available during the second quarter of this year. There’s an 8MP on the back which shoots 1080p video — you can also hook the Xperia P up to Sony’s Xperia Smart Dock to mirror the display onto your HDTV. Oh, there’s also NFC built-in.
Xperia U
The Xperia U is the smallest (so far) of the Xperia NXT line with its 3.5-inch ‘Reality Display’. Under the hood there’s also a 1GHz Dual-Core CPU, and a 5MP camera to shoot 720p video. The Xperia U is meant to be a more personal device; Sony have attempted to show this off by allowing you to set the notification LED (in the clear strip) to flash any colour you like. Wow, personal.
Both devices are expected to launch in the middle of Q2 (~May). We’ll keep an eye out for local launches.
That block at the end of the phone under the silver ribbon, seems like a waste of real estate. Could have removed it to make the phone smaller or Extend the screen …
So far every Android OEM except Sony has released an Android 4.0 device, as far as I can tell. The performance improvements and additional features of ICS are considerable.
Add to that the hassle of updating and not knowing how well the update will be done and you have a strong case for not buying something with last years OS.
I do like Sony’s hardware – this is what makes their lack of innovation on the software side so disappointing.
Just calling it as I see it. Someone needs to!
To the contrary, they’ve commited to ics for their 2012 devices, and have been releasing alpha and beta roms to the development community (for 2011 devices!)
Link: http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2011/12/15/ice-cream-sandwich-alpha-rom-available-for-unlocked-xperia-phones/
And link: http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2012/02/23/android-ice-cream-sandwich-beta-rom-available-for-unlocked-2011-xperia-smartphone-models/
Sony is out of the slacker android game. The only reason they have for not releasing the phone with ics is because of their strict dedication to a bug-free phone.
See link: http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2011/12/07/ice-cream-sandwich-from-source-code-release-to-software-upgrade/
Just calling it as I see it. Lol