Sony Ericsson unveils the Xperia ray, Xperia active and txt
Sony Ericsson has just unveiled three new additions to its mobile phone portfolio at the Communicasia show in Singapore. We've got the Xperia ray and Xperia active full-touch Android smartphones as well as the QWERTY-packing txt.
Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
The Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is an old friend of ours previously known by its code name, Urushi. The 9.4mm slim smartphone weighs in at just 100 g and packs a 3.3" BRAVIA screen of FWVGA resolution (854 x 480 pixels).
Sony Ericsson Xperia ray comes with an 8.1 megapixel autofocus camera with an Exmor R backlit sensor, capable of capturing 720p video. It's only got 300 MB of user-available memory but the microSD card slot lets your expand that by up to 32 GB.
As is to be expected, the Xperia ray connectivity departments is well geared with dual-band (900/2100 MHz) or tri-band(850, 1900, 2100 MHz) 3G/HSPA, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, microUSB and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Sony Ericsson Xperia ray will be available globally in selected markets from Q3 (our previous tipster mentioned the end of September) in four distinct colors - black, gold, white and pink.
Sony Ericsson Xperia active
The Sony Ericsson Xperia active has SPORTS written all over it (proverbially!). It's a dust proof and water resistant Android smartphone with scratch-resistant screen with wet finger tracking support. Wait what? Yeah, its touchscreen would work just fine registering your sweaty fingers during workouts. Awesome, right? Wait to hear the rest of the specs.
The Xperia active runs on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and packs a 3-inch Reality display (with Mobile BRAVIA Engine) of HVGA (480 x 320 pixels) resolution, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video recording, 320MB internal memory and microSD card slot (with 2GB pre-installed card).
The Sony Ericsson Xperia active has a bag full of connectivity tricks too - there is Wireless N with DLNA support, quad-band GSM and dual (or tri)-band HSPA network support, GPS with aGPS and digital compass, Bluetooth, FM radio with RDS and a 3.5mm audio jack is onboard.
The Xperia active runs on the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will come with lots of pre-installed sports apps and is compatible with ANT+ technology for real-time heart rate monitoring much like other Sony Ericsson handsets.
As we said, the Xperia active is dust proof and water resistant and can swim in up to 1 m of water depth for good half an hour. The screen will successfully track your fingers if they are wet from sweat or otherwise. But there is more, Sony Ericsson has included lots of goodies in the retail package to help your phone in your active life - an extra exchangeable back cover, detachable sports ear hooks for the handsfree headset, a wrist strap for your Xperia active and an arm band case.
Sony Ericsson Xperia active will launch in Q3 this year with the pricing yet to be announced.
Sony Ericsson txt
The last announced phone is the Sony Ericsson txt. It's a socially-oriented feature phone with 2.6-inch (non-touch) display, a full hardware QWERTY keyboard, an SMS shortcut for instant texting option and a "Friends" app showing the social updates of your top five friends.
The info on the Sony Ericsson txt is pretty scarce so far. The only other available detail is the availability - Q3 this year.
LiveDock and LiveSound
Sony Ericsson has also announced two new accessories compatible with the latest generation of Xperia devices - the LiveDock (a simple docking station for charging) and LiveSound. The latter is a new tangle-free hi-fi headset with a key, which can control some compatible apps (like you can control the iPod/iPhone player with the single key on its headset). Both accessories will become available in Q3 too.