Sony’s first mid-range 4G smartphone – the Xperia SP – will soon be available through Three, Phones 4u and Carphone Warehouse, the vendors’ official websites confirm.

Customers looking to pick up the Xperia SP on pay monthly tariffs can currently register their interest on the network and retailers’ ‘Coming Soon’ pages to be notified when the handset is ready to order.

Powered by Android Jelly Bean, the SP’s standout features include a 4.6-inch 720p HD screen with Mobile Bravia Engine 2, a 1GHz dual core Snapdragon S4 processor and an eight-megapixel camera with an Exmor RS sensor for low-light snapping.

All this is crammed into a precision-crafted aluminium frame, which features an illuminated ‘transparent element’ that you can personalise by colour to alert you of various incoming missives.

Of course, because the SP also comes with 4G LTE support, we reckon there’s a good chance that it should be landing soon on EE’s super-fast network too.

Alas, it doesn’t feature any water or resistant capabilities, which are still the USPs of Sony’s flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z.

Pricing is as-yet unknown, but given the SP’s relatively low-key specs, we think it should be available free on pay monthly tariffs from around £20.

Rest assured, as soon as we know more, you will too.

Via:

Three, Carphone Warehouse, Phones 4u

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Sony is rumoured to be already working on a new flagship phone, as it looks to build on the success of the four million-selling Xperia Z.

Unearthed by Chinese site ePrice, the handset, currently only known as ‘Honami’, is reportedly home to a five-inch full HD display, a 2.3GHz quad-core processor and a whopping 20-megapixel camera to outmatch just about any consumer-level DSLR out there.

The camera, which is inarguably the most standout spec of the lot, is said to feature a Cybershot CMOS sensor from Sony’s popular point-and-shoot range, along with a Carl Zeiss lens.

Elsewhere, the Honami is mooted to pack 2GB of RAM, a dedicated Walkman audio chip, a non-removable battery of up to 3,000mAh capacity and water and dust resistance capabilities just like the Xperia Z.

Meanwhile, a poster on Chinese forum Baidu who allegedly tests Sony Xperia handsets claims that the Honami will be ‘one of the most attractive phones Sony has ever made’ and bring all of Sony’s best technology in one place as part of a ‘One Sony’ branding initiative.

The unnamed tester also confirmed a leaked Sony ‘phablet’ from earlier this year.

Codenamed ‘Togari’, this allegedly rocks a 6.44-inch display with a 1080p resolution and a design similar to the Xperia Z with a glass back. Sadly, that’s about all we know about the handset so far.

Sony is hotly tipped to officially unveil both devices at the IFA expo in Berlin in September.

As always, we’ll bring you anything more we hear about them in the meantime.

Via:

BGR

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