Sony Ericsson and the extreme sports brand Billabong have entered into a partnership, which will bring the Xperia smartphones closer to the adrenaline junkies, who are fans of the popular Australian clothing and gear company. The first product of the partnership is the Sony Ericsson Xperia active Billabong edition.

There is no difference between the newcomer and the tough as nails, regular Xperia active, which we came to like quite a lot, save for the Billabong branded back cover and some software additions. The latter include exclusive Billabong screensavers, preloaded videos, and an app to keep you up to date on surfing news.

Fans of the Sony brand gather around, because now you have got yourself a theme song on which to cheer your beloved phones.

Well-known Xperia fan and YouTube user Domothy85 has created a third music video to celebrate the Sony Ericsson Xperia line-up and who knows, maybe attract new Xperia owners. The lyrics are really catchy and combined with the New Jagger melody by Maroon 5 it could really be worthy for your daily music playlist.

Sony Ericsson ST25i "Kumquat" has emerged in a spy photo and it looks, well, quite familiar. The upcoming smartphone looks a lot like the highly anticipated Sony Xperia S flagship, which got announced at CES this year. Its specs however, have been toned down a bit.

The device is rumored to feature a dual-core CPU, clocked at 1GHz and a 5MP snapper. The screen is reportedly in the 3.5" range, and has FWVGA resolution.

Sony Ericsson Teased us with a subway photo of the Xperia Arc HD, we have got what appears to be the back, this connected with the rest of the leaks showing off the entirety of the device. What we saw earlier today was photos of the sides and the front of the device, it being a generally candybar-looking smartphone with a lovely stylish metallic strip along the bottom and black plastic around the edges. Now from Sony Ericsson Germany we have got the back in full HD, nearly.

This device is what Sony Ericsson will almost certainly end up calling the XPERIA Arc HD, also thus far codenamed Nozomni. The smartphone has been tipped to have a 1280 x 720 display, this putting it up in the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 4S range for superior resolution, and Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread will be pre-installed on it. Inside you willl find a massive 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon MSM8660 chipset and absolutely no expandable memory. And a beast 12-megapixels camera too.

This week we are seeing Sony Ericsson teasing us with a new device, What we are really sure about that its an Android ICS device under this fancy white sheet, It may be something Big and that it will be revealed next week during the CES 2012 event. We Guess its a tablet with the latest ICS 4.0.3 but we will see...

Wait for our CES 2012 Coverege!

Sony has promised an Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 upgrade to all the Tablet S devices during this year. they have now also dropped the price of the device by $100 by Making the 16GB model costs $399 and the 32GB model costs $499.

Sony is also throwing in some free stuff along with the price cut. Buyers will get store credit and five free movie rentals from Sony Video Unlimited service, five free PlayStation Store game downloads and 180 days of free Music Unlimited service.

Sony Ericsson and Box delivered on their promise and have started offering 50GB of cloud storage to the Xperia users for free. The promotion runs from today to the end of next year and all Xperia users have to do to take advantage of it is download the free Box app from the Android market and create an account or simply log in if they happen to have one.

The Box cloud storage allows uploading of all kinds of files, including multimedia content and documents.

When Sony Ericsson explained how hard it is to release a major software update, we got the feeling that we are in for a pretty long wait. it seems that the company developers are progressing faster than expected as they just released an alpha preview, which can be used by devs to start working on apps for Android Ice Cream Sandwich right now.

Anyway, there is a good deal of things that are already up and running and here goes the complete list:

• New "Roboto" font

• New "Holo" theme is supported (you are able to test apps written to make use of the Holo theme)

• Music player control from lock screen

• Updated UI in the Settings menu

• Updated UI in the web browser

• Updated UI and interaction with the new messaging action bar

• Updated UI for improved multitasking

• Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks and browser tabs in the Notification menu

Video Demo Below!

With the mystery surrounding the Sony Ericsson Xperia Nozomi now almost completely gone, the rumor mill is focusing on the next smartphones by the company. And the one, which just appeared on some leaked shots should be some way off in the future as it is only carrying the Sony branding.

Sony Ericsson is to become just Sony in mid-2012 so we probably won't see the smartphone pictured below until then. And if its rumored specs sheet turns out correct, we are not sure the waiting will be worth it.

No one likes waiting for software updates, but preparing such an update for release turns out to be a tougher ordeal than most people suspect. Sony Ericsson detailed their procedure of updating, which explains why we will have to wait a while before they release the promised Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update, even though the ICS source code has been out for weeks.

The first stage is to merge the changes brought about by ICS into Sony Ericsson own source code and to resolve any issues that might arise from the merge.

ICS has been optimized for Texas Instruments, so Sony Ericsson has to throw those parts out and replace them with equivalent parts for the Qualcomm 8255 chipset, which they used across the 2011 Xperia lineup.

The first of several tweets by Sony employee Siddharth Sai G said that Ice Cream Sandwich should be expected to be available the first week in January for all 2011 Xperia handsets. The current range of Xperia smartphones released this year is Xperia active, arc, arc S, mini, mini pro, neo, neo V, Play, pro, Xperia ray and Live with Walkman. According to the same Sony employee, Sony Ericsson is also planning a skinless version of ICS for 2011/2012 line of devices. That is probably not going to happen as the software and services bundled with their Xperia phones is one of Sony Ericsson strengths.

Last week Sony Ericsson Italy posted a contrary post on Facebook saying the ICS was expected to be available around March 2012. We will not hold our breath while waiting, and the official channel for such Sony Ericsson announcement are as usual over at the Sony Ericsson product blog. They have not said anything about a future update since November 15th when the company promised free update for all Xperia 2011 models.

Sony Ericsson is really having a hard time keeping their Xperia Arc HD smartphone under wraps. Their upcoming flagship droid broke loose again and appeared on a couple of live shots, confirming some of its specs in the process.

The smartphone codenamed Nozomi, will sport a dual-core CPU, clocked at 1.5 GHz, a 12 megapixel camera and a 4.3-inch 720p screen. It will offer 1GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, but there will be no microSD card slot, so you will not be able to expand that. A nicely sounding 1750 mAh battery will power the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD.

A high-res press photo of the recently leaked Sony Ericsson Nozomi has leaked.

From this press image we can clearly spot the front-facing camera on the top right corner of the device as well as the fact it is branded as a Sony Ericsson device, despite the recently announced acquisition of Ericsson share by Sony. And although the device is expected to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, the company has decided to leave the three physical home, back and menu Android buttons.

From the confines of Chinese forums we found this little excerpt from what is claimed to be an official picture of theSony Ericsson Nozomi. The side render coincides with what we have seen leaked in flesh and blood in the wild before, and confirms the phone is coming in white.

Granted, the image is very small, and the technical specifications are cut out, but you can still see the word "Dual" which would confirm once again that we might be having the first mutlicore Android handset from the company in the face of the Sony Ericsson Nozomi. Another proof is the 1920x1xxx line under the camera section, which would imply 1080p HD video capture that we usually associate with dual-core handsets.

Sony Ericsson has announced and then temporarily backtracked from a partnership with cloud company Box.net, first revealing that buyers of its Android smartphones would get 50GB free storage before clarifying that the offer was not ready for primetime. According to a hastily yanked post on the Sony Ericsson blog, simply by downloading the Box.net app smartphone users would get 50GB of space to store video, music, documents and other files.

However, Sony Ericsson followed up with a clarification that the deal was not quite ready, and admitted that the announcement post had gone up mistakenly. "While we are really excited about working with Box down the road, this offer is not active today" the company wrote today. "We are in the midst of finalising the details of this promotion and are working to provide this offer very soon to all Xperia customers."

Sony Ericsson promised that their 2011 Xperia lineup will be updated to the latest version of Android, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, back in September, but now the company has stepped up to bring some further details about the update.

Sony Ericsson confirmed that the following devices will be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich update:

• Xperia arc
• Xperia arc S
• Xperia PLAY
• Xperia neo
• Xperia neo V
• Xperia mini
• Xperia mini pro
• Xperia pro
• Xperia active
• Xperia ray

Football fans all over the world, rejoice! Pro Evolution Soccer 2012, one of the best football manager games around, has hit the Xperia Play exclusively. Other dorids wil have to wait a bit before they can get in on the action.

As you might expect from the Pro Evolution Soccer series, the 2012 edition has been licensed by UEFA. As a result, the game features the UEFA Champions League, The UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Super Cup.

Its been a good five months since the first time we heard a rumor about a dual-core handset by Sony Ericsson. By the time the Nozomi name popped up in late August, we were seriously anxious to catch a glimpse of the upcoming Android powerhouse.

Well, folks, here it is after months of expectation, we have the first live shots of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Nozomi LT26i out in the wild and, boy, it looks like it has been well worth the long wait.

In terms of specs, not much is known at the moment. The smartphone is rumored to pack a dualcore CPU, clocked at 1.5GHz and a gig of RAM. The device 4.3-inchscreen is bound to be a thing of beauty with its 1280x720 pixels resolution. We still do not know the capability of the camera units of the Nozomi

Apparently Sony Ericsson is working on a new flagship handset that will rock a 720p screen (1280 by 720 pixels) a la Google Nexus Galaxy. Whats more, the forthcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD is said to come with a full HD video recording support, hinting us it will also sport a dual-core processor.

Release date is unknown at this stage, but judging by the company previous launches, it will use the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to show the world what they got.

Sony Ericsson and Electronic Arts just announced some great news for all you Xperia Play owners out there. The two companies have put together an exclusive offer called "Get in the Game" which gives users special access to four top notch EA game titles. 

The games available for free download include:

• Battlefield Bad Company 2
• Dead Space
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
• Need for Speed SHIFT

Sony is reportedly ready to buy out Ericsson in the Sony Ericsson joint venture and will take a stronger role in controlling its mobile future, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Sony Ericsson was created in 2001 as a 50-50 joint venture between Sony and the infrastructure giant Ericsson and it has had some moderate success, particularly in the feature phone department with its cool Walkman series. The company has been very slow to adjust to the smartphone world though, as even its CEO has said it should have taken the iPhone more seriously.

The buyout would give Sony full control of the mobile phone company, including the mobile patent portfolio and the move could cost up to $1.7 billion. The move would allow Sony to really dive into the fast-growing smartphone space with all of its efforts and it would allow the company to have a complete ecosystem.

We already encountered with the Nozomi rumors twice and we are kind of familiar with its awesome specs a 4.3-inch 720p screen, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 12 megapixel camera and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Today another leak sheds more light on the Nozomi, but also reveals another device called Aoba.

The two devices popped up into the Android Nenamark database. It seems someone has tested the two gadgets and uploaded the results online. The info from the database once again confirms the Nozomi HD screen, the dual-core 1.5GHz processor but also tells us the GPU Adreno 220 and the Android version inside 2.3.5 Gingerbread.

We hear Aoba for the first time, but it has exactly the same specs as Nozomi an HD display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Adreno 220 graphics and currently Android 2.3.5 is ticking inside.

Great news, Sony Ericsson Xperia Users, A New version of the CyanogenMod 7 with support for all currently existing Sony Ericsson Xperia smartphones is on the way. The news was brought by the chief CM developers Steve Kondik, so its as official as it gets.

If you are a Sony Ericsson owner you may be interested in knowing that the upcoming CyanogenMod release will feature support for 10 new devices. This is a joint work between CyanogenMod and the FreeXperia team, which is now also part of the CM development group.supported devices:

- Xperia Arc
- Xperia Neo
- Xperia Mini
- Xperia Mini Pro
- Xperia Play
- Xperia Ray
- Xperia X10
- Xperia X8
- Xperia X10 Mini
- Xperia X10 Mini Pro

Square Enix and SE have teamed up to offer Xperia Play users an exclusive Lara Croft game that they can download and play starting in November..

The game is called Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. It appears that in the plan on Sony Ericsson part to get gamers interested in the Play is to get exclusive games that only owners of the gaming phone will be able to get, at least to start with.

The headline may come as a shock to some but its true. It seems in an effort to make a great gaming phone, Sony Ericsson forgot to add some basic features in the Xperia PLAY that are expected in a phone that costs as much as it does.

Thankfully, the error has been corrected and after the latest firmware update, the Xperia PLAY is now capable of recording videos in 720p resolution, that too with continuous auto-focus. You will also be able to get the option toggle the automatic display brightness option from the settings menu. Interestingly, this second option is absent from the latest 2.3.4 update on both the Xperia arc as well as the Xperia neo.

720p Sample Below!

No News about Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S coming to stores, we have spotted it on one online retailer website and will spread soon to more retailers and websites.

The Arc S is an Updated version of Sony Ericsson Arc. The key difference being the improved 1.4GHz processor. Beyond that the S is effectively the same device but that is not a bad thing.

Highlights include the top-notch 4.2" LCD with Sony BRAVIA engine to really make it pop. There is 512MB of RAM, an 8MP camera capable of 720p HD video at 30fps with continuous auto-focus and a new 3D sweep panorama mode, a feature previously reserved for the likes of Sony Cybershot cameras like the TX-9. The most impressive thing about the sweep being that it creates a 3D image using the S single lens camera.

Although the recently launched Xperia phones were meant to get the Android 2.3.4 update sometime in October, Sony Ericsson has decided to surprise everyone by releasing it ahead of schedule.

The first one to benefit from this generosity is the Xperia neo. The update brings the firmware version from 4.0.A.2.368 to 4.0.1.A.0.283.

Along with adding Android specific updates such as the ability to make video calls from Google Talk, the Xperia neo will also get features like 3D Sweep Panorama, swipe-based text input, built-in screen capture function and enhancements to the Facebook integration, things we saw on the recently announced Xperia neo V and Xperia arc S.

The Xbox Live game that called Lore Runner X is coming to Android but exclusively on the Xperia PLAY, Sony Ericsson will release it to their other Xperia phones but it will hit the Android Market soon.

Lore Runner X on the Xperia PLAY has the same 3D graphics as its console sibling and will be controlled by the Xperia play playstation-like hardware buttons.

Sony Ericsson is really doing well this year. All of its latest Xperia phones  arc, neo, PLAY, mini and mini proturned out to be really great devices, with even more coming soon up ray, active and arc S.

All the latest Xperia are based on Android 2.3 Gingerbread and as we found out have quite good performance. Recently, Sony Ericsson announced it will update all of them with Android 2.3.4, which brings tons of new features - USB on-the-go, Sony 3D sweep panorama for the camera, even better Facebook integration, Swype-like text input (T9 Trace), integrated screen capture, video chats via Google Talk and more.

And today the company confirmed that all those Xperia phones will be updated to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, when that becomes available. The Android best-of-both-worlds edition should come out this October or November, so early next year is when the Xperia updates can realistically be expected.

As promised, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play has been announced for ATT before the end of the year. The device will be launching on September 18 for 49.99 USD on a two-year contract, and will be available in an exclusive blue tinge. As a PlayStation phone, it comes loaded with a couple of solid titles, like Madden NFL 1, The Sims 3, and Crash Bandicoot, along with having a bunch of tailor-made games available in the Android Market.

The Xperia Play is unique for its slide-out game controller, right down to the shoulder buttons and dual capacitive joysticks. Specs-wise, the Xperia Play does reasonably well. Its running Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, has a 4-inch 480 x 854 display, a 5 megapixel camera on the back plus front-facing VGA shooter, all running on a 1 GHz processor with 512 MB of RAM.

Sony Ericsson has started shipping the Xperia ray to various retailers around the world. It seems the shipments are small, because some of the sellers are already nearly or completely out of stock.

There is no official information on which countries are getting those shipments first but we have confirmations that Xperia ray is indeed available in some UK, Russian, UAE and other Asian retailers.

The Xperia ray is selling for £300 in UK but the price may vary up to £350. Other online retailers are offering the ray on pre-order on similar prices with launch date in a few days from now (September 9).

So, the Xperia ray is most probably flying (or sailing) to your country right now. If you want one, now is the right time to spare some cash. Meanwhile you are welcomed to check our preview.

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S is the fastest Xperia smartphone up to date with a 1.4GHz Scorpion single-core processor and running on Android 2.3.4 out of the box.

The Xperia arc S is almost identical with its arc predecessor but the processor. The new arc S is based on Qualcomm MSM8255T Snapdragon chipset, which features a 1.4GHz processor, Adreno 205 GPU and 512MB RAM.

The rest of the specs are pretty much the same a 4.2" FWVGA Reality display with Mobile BRAVIA engine, an 8 megapixel camera with Sony Exmor R sensor and 720p video recording and the same impressive connectivity options including HDMI port.

The Xperia arc S also preserves the original arc design and has the same measurements and size.

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S will run on Android 2.3.4 Gingebread out of the box the same version that will tick inside the newly announced Xperia neo V and will become available to the whole Xperia 2011 lineup later this year.

In case you have missed the news about the Android 2.3.4 update, you can learn everything about it here. It will bring USB on-the-go, Sony 3D sweep panorama for the camera, even better Facebook integration, Swype-like text input (T9 Trace), integrated screen capture, Video chats via Google Talk and more.

Sony Ericsson has just announced the Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread update for the 2011 Xperia lineup and the first phone that will run on 2.3.4 out of the box the Xperia neo V.

The Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread update will hit the whole Xperia lineup from this year PLAY, Arc, neo, pro, mini, mini pro, active and ray. It will bring along a few nice features:

• Sony 3D sweep panorama functionality - you can take panorama shots and watch them (in 2D) on your phone, (in 2D) on your HTDV or (in 3D) on your 3D HDTV
• Screen capture - grab a screenshot anywhere from your Xperia
• Enhanced Facebook integration
• Google Talk with Video Chat (for Xperia phones with front-facing camera)
• Swipe text input - works just like Swype, but it's called T9 trace
• USB on-the-go functionality - it works only when you've connected your Xperia phone to the Sony Ericsson LiveDock. It supports wired and wireless USB accessories such as keyboard, mouse and gamepads. There is no word on USB drives support yet.

Video Below!

According to Sony Ericsson, Xperia Play users are more likely to pay for games than other Android smartphone owners. As a matter of fact, the Swedish-Japanese handset maker said that more than 75% of people with the first PlayStation-certified device are "paying to play." The company head of market development Dominic Neil-Dwyer said that their gaming-focused device is "reversing a trend of a majority not paying for games."

At the moment there are about 150 games optimized for the Xperia Play that fully take advantage of the phone side-sliding gamepad, resembling the one Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) has. Among the publishers that are releasing these games are major companies like EA and Gameloft.

It seems that Sony Ericsson is getting back to the Walkman brand. The latest model to sport the prestigious logo is the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman. It is quite similar to the new Xperia mini, but with a slightly bigger screen and a strong focus on music.

The Live with Walkman is a Gingerbread droid, powered by a 1GHz processor. The screen is 3.2" TFT with HVGA resolution and scratch-resistant coating. The phone measures 56.5 x 106 x 14.2 mm and weighs 115g, making it slightly taller and heavier than the Xperia mini.

During the next couple of weeks, Vodafone UK will start selling the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray. While we do not have the exact date, we do see that the smartphone got its page on the carrier "Coming Soon" pages where those interested can leave their email and be instantly notified when the Big Red is ready to take their money.

Pricing was not unveiled, but its safe to bet the Xperia Ray will be offered free of charge with a number of contracts starting at about 30 GBP per month. If you recall, that money will get you the Android 2.3 Gingerbread-running device which specs include a smallish 3.3-inch 854×480 touchscreen, solid camera, HSPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and so on. In a nutshell, its a smartphone that sits somewhere between the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini and Xperia Neo. If thats something you want hit this link to proceed to Vodafone website to sign-up for the "its here" alert.

Sony Ericsson is pushing out an update for the Xperia Arc and the Xperia PLAY. Its a minor update, the Android version is still 2.3.3, but it brings a few useful changes like stereo sound in videos, landscape mode in the homescreen and a few others.

The homescreens of the Xperia Arc and the Xperia PLAY will both work in landscape mode after the update and there is a selection of new themes available as well. The other big change is the sound in videos both switch from mono to stereo sound.

Next up is DLNA support so you can play media from DLNA-enabled devices. Finally, there is xLoud, which improves the performance of the loudspeaker when playing music.

Finally! Not so long ago Sony Ericsson has announced it will bring Gingerbread to its Android pioneer the XPERIA X10. And it is doing it today, right at this moment, so prepare to update. Sony Ericsson has skipped the Froyo generation and announced back in March it is working to bring Gingerbread on its firstborn droid the XPERIA X10.

Today the 2.3.3 Gingerbread update for XPERIA X10 has been released for all carrier-independent devices. Just go to your local Sony Ericsson website and check if the update has been made available. We can confirm it is already rolling out in the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany, so we guess until the end of the day all the unlocked XPERIA X10 worldwide will get a taste of Gingerbread.

If you have been keeping track you would know that the recent batch of high-end Xperia smartphones pack some of the best LCD displays we have seen. Their Reality displays might lack a bit in viewing angles, but their image quality is downright splendid, and as the company would gladly tell anyone, their new Mobile BRAVIA Engine certainly plays a big part in delivering it.

The increased saturation carries just about the same benefits and shortcomings it makes colors livelier, but in areas where there were already lively, some detail might be lost. The downside is that you are losing some information as some shadow areas get too dark and some bright areas clip so no detail is visible in them.

Noise reduction

The noise reduction is the hardest to spot, so we’ve picked a pretty noisy image as our example. It is also one of the areas where the BRAVIA doesn’t do as well as promised. You see, sharpening, contrast boosting and saturation boosting all lead to increase of the noise, so when you apply noise reduction after those, the best you could hope for is to end up with just about the same amount you started with.

And the Mobile BRAVIA Engine does exactly that. The noise is brought back to its initial levels so the new punchy image is not ruined by it. It gets restructured with all that processing but the general noise amounts are roughly the same.

Germany just became the second country, after UK, where you can place pre-orders for the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray. The German Amazon site already lists the latest Xperia smartphone and the good news is that its asking price is lower than in the UK.

Amazon.de accepts your pre-orders already, with the handset cost fixed at €369. This translates to just £325, which is notably better than the £350 demanded by UK sellers. Of course, those are all pre-orders so things might change before the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray hits the shelves.

Unfortunately, Amazon.de has not given us an estimated launch date for the smartphone yet. Great Britain is said to be getting it on 15 August.

Sony Ericsson seems to be having a hard time keeping their upcoming flagship the Xperia Duo under wraps. We just got another press shot of the dual-core smartphone, along with some juicy rumors about its specs sheet.

According to the source, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo possibly uses the NovaThor A9500 chipset, which combines a couple of Cortex A9 cores with the Mali-400 GPU. It's basically the same deal that you get with the Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II, except that this time the CPU clock is even higher.

The other rumored scenario will see the Xperia Duo packing the Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset, which is the one that powers the HTC Sensation.

And the best bit is that an overclocked version of one of the two most powerful currently available mobile chipsets isnot all the Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo can offer. The Gingerbread-running smartphone will also feature an impressive 4.5" qHD screen with the Bravia Mobile engine. The list continues with a 12 megapixel camera and an unbelievable sounding 2500 mAh battery.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia ray found itself in the hands of the FCC, going through their full set of tests and more importantly for us, a full set of photographs that give us a better look at the phone.

If you have never heard of the Xperia ray, it is Sony Ericsson upcoming Android smartphone that wasannounced last month, having a slim 9.4mm body and just 100g weight. The device packs in a 3.3-inch TFT display with 854 x 480 resolution, 8 megapixel camera with auto-focus and LED flash and 720p video recording, 1Ghz Snapdragon processor and Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. The phone is slated to release sometime around August for around US $555.

After struggling a bit with their first few Android smartphones, the Xperia Arc was the first proper Android phone to come out of Sony Ericsson stables. Packing the latest version of Android in a sleek, curvy body with a quality 8 megapixel camera and a 4.2-inch Reality Display, the Xperia Arc was a fine all-round device.

But until now the device was not available in the US but now Sony Ericsson has come to its senses and has launched the device stateside in a SIM-free version. The unlocked Xperia Arc will set you back by $600, which is fair considering the specs of the device but if you ask us you should rather wait for theGalaxy S II, unless you have a thing for curved backs or Sony Ericsson.

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray has just gone on pre-order in the UK. Play.com claims it will have the Xperia ray on 15 August opposing the previous rumors for September release and wants £350 for it.

Sony Ericsson announced the Xperia ray just two weeks ago but was mum on the release date. The only thing we got was Q3 2011.

According to a previous information leaked prior to the official Xperia ray announcement, the Gingerbrad-running smartphone is supposed to hit the shelves in September. Now we have two sources that say otherwise. Play.com has already started a pre-order campaign for the Xperia ray. It costs £350 and is supposed to ship on 15 August.

Carephone Warehouse has also announced it will offer the Xperia ray in August, but for now you can only register your interest.

Both sellers warn the date (and the price) are subject to change, so you might want to take this with a pinch of salt.

Sony Android tablets have been official for a while now but there is tantalizingly little info on either of them. Tech geeks in Munich however got lucky enough to be treated to a quick hands on.

The Sony S1 tablet reportedly felt okay to hold and weighs 600g or so. The tablet runs Android 3.0 but with a heavily modified UI. It played the classic Crash Bandicoot in 4:3 aspect, with the bars around the image reserved for the game controls. There is a proprietary USB port but Sony did not say much on what adapters might connect to it.

The Sony S2 stars in a quick hands-on video its interesting to see how the two 5.5″ screens work together to form one bigger screen. Like the S1, the Sony S2 tablet sports a PlayStation logo and might provide some Nintendo DS-like gaming experience.

While carriers are still pushing all sorts of technologies as “4G”, Ericsson did a quick demo run of actual 4G LTE Advanced using a test network. They achieved mind-boggling speeds of around 950Mbps in other words, much, much faster than current “4G” offerings (including LTE) and faster than even Wi-Fi 802.11n.

Ericsson expects the first commercial LTE Advanced network to be up and running by 2013, though considering most networks have not even begun rolling out LTE, I doubt Advanced will reach many people soon.

LTE has a theoretical max speed of 100Mbps but the LTE Advanced specification calls for several antennas working simultaneously and using more spectrum to push the data. During the demo, Ericsson used an 8×8 MIMO antenna and 60MHz worth of spectrum LTE can use 20MHz at most, while LTE Advanced can go even beyond 60MHz, up to 100MHz. The test network set up by Ericsson reached speeds around 950Mbps, which can make even some Ethernet networks sweat, let alone current wireless networks.

Sony Ericsson has just released a video where the tennis star Maria Sharapova demoes the newly announced Xperia active. The best part of the videos is where she sinks the phone into a glass of water and then works with it while its still wet. No more teasing,

Video Below!

When it got announced back in March, the future availability of Android 2.3 Gingerbread for Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 caused quite a stir among the brand fans. Now, we have a video preview of the OS update for you, and a launch date.

There have been some changes in the features which were originally promised back in March. Among them is the camera UI of the device in the update it will remain the same as in the older OS versions, and not revert to a stock Android UI. This change was made mostly due to requests from users of the XPERIA X10.

The Facebook inside Xperia functionality from the 2011 lineup of Sony Ericsson droids will be a part of the update. Same goes for the desktop layout and the gesture controls. The music player will get an equalizer too. You will also be able to use the phone as a modem or Wi-Fi hotspot.

Video Below!

Ericsson is going for the consumer market having launched its m-payment service across seven European countries. Dubbed Ericsson Money, the new service allows mobile phone users in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Sweden to send and receive money and withdraw cash.

According to the Swedish company, this is the "first step toward bringing a full suite of convenient, cost-efficient, secure and instant mobile financial services to consumers globally." Money can be loaded to an eWallet via a credit or debit card and can be used to transfer funds to anyone with another Ericsson Money account. Additionally, there is an option to link the Ericsson Money PrePaid MasterCard to make purchases using the account.

Going forward, Ericsson will unveil the service in other European countries and include additional features in the mix, such as bill payments, online shopping and interconnection with similar services. "Simply having a friend phone number, irrespective of where he or she is in the world, will open up access to financial services and mobile money in a new way" said Semir Mahjoub, Ericsson VP and President of Ericsson Money Services.

Although it was announced back with the Xperia Arc, Neo and PLAY, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro is yet to see a proper launch date. Although the pre-booking for the phone began in the UK at the start of this month the actual launch of the phone has been pushed back to sometime late next month.

An online store in UK is currently accepting pre-orders for the Xperia Pro, which has been priced at £349.99 ($568) and the availability is being displayed as "late July".

For those unaware, the Xperia Pro is virtually identical to the Xperia Neo, except for one thing. The Pro has a full sliding QWERTY keypad underneath the display. It also has a 3.7-inch, 854 x 480 display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor and 8 megapixel camera with 720p video recording and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Sony Ericsson Facebook competition has come to a close the Mix Walkman and the txt pro are now fully official. Also, the video reviews of the four finalists that got to review the phone are available for you to watch and do not forget to vote for your favorite, they will win a big prize. Both new Sony Ericsson phones are feature phones but they pack some compelling functionality.

The Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman has the looks of the Xperia Mini but there is Walkman blood in its veins. The Zappin button is a particularly interesting feature press it and the phone will preview the chorus of the next song. Thats right, just the chorus, which is the most recognizable part of the song.

The Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman is a very compact phone (95.8 x 52.8 x 14.3mm, 88g) with a 3" WQVGA screen, 3.2MP camera and exchangeable bands to personalize the phone. You get Wi-Fi connectivity and microSD card slot too (for cards up to 32GB).

Video Review Below!

The E3 expo has just started and Sony Ericsson has something to show the gamers the Xperia PLAY Experience Pack. It contains the DK300 Multimedia Dock, USB and audio cables and code for 3 three Gameloft titles.

The Experience Pack is compatible only with Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY. It contains the previously announced DK300 multimedia dock, a portable short-length USB cable, a 3.5mm male-to-male audio cable so you can connect the dock with an audio system and a game code.

The game code will allow you to download three Gameloft games of your choice from this list:

• Assassin Creed – Altair Chronicles
• Uno
• Real Football 2011
• Modern Combat 2 : Black Pegasus
• Lets Golf! 2
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction
• Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front
• N.O.V.A. 2 Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance
• Eternal Legacy

Xperia PLAY owners are probably still busy playing the load of high-quality games that launched along with the handset and here comes Sony Ericsson throwing another bunch at them. The company has just announced 23 new titles that will be made available to the PlayStation-certified phone.

Minecraft is obviously the most popular of the bunch, but the rest of the titles seem pretty intriguing too. The hugely popular indie game will be an Xperia PLAY exclusive on Android, alongside nine other titles.

The other 13 games that the Xperia PLAY owners should look forward to will not have the exclusive status, but are all high-quality time-killers. Not to mention that many of them would probably be much more enjoyable on the PLAY with all those buttons and joysticks.

New Android Games Exclusive on Xperia PLAY:

• Minecraft™ by Mojang
• Battlefield Bad Company 2 by Electronic Arts
• Tom Clancy Rainbow 6 Shadow Vanguard by Gameloft
• Desert Winds by Southend Interactive
• Ruined by Bigpoint
• Icebreaker™ by NaturalMotion
• Sleepy Jack by SilverTree Media
• Cracking Sands by Polarbit
• Armageddon Squadron 2 by Polarbit
• An unnamed fighting game from Khaeon Gamestudio

New Games coming soon on Xperia PLAY:

• Pocket Legends by Spacetime Studios
• Star Legends: The Black Star Chronicles by Spacetime Studios
• Eternal Legacy by Gameloft
• Guns 'n' Glory 2 by HandyGames
• Dungeon Hunter 2 by Gameloft
• Pocket RPG by Crescent Moon Games
• D.A.R.K. developed by Gamelab
• Samurai II: Vengeance by MADFINGER Games
• Vendetta Online by Guild Software
• Order & Chaos - Gameloft
• Happy Vikings by Handy Games
• A Ball Game by Trendy Entertainment
• Lumines by Connect2Media

While most of the Android users are running Froyo on their devices, some running Gingerbread and some others getting ready for Ice Cream Sandwich that Google recently announced at their I/O event, there are few unlucky souls who are still stuck on Android 1.6 Donut. Some of these unlucky people include owners of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 in US on the ATT network.

But Sony Ericsson has a heart. It heard the pleas of all these people who were crying for the latest version of Android on their device. And so they decided to take action. Well, they released Android 2.1 update for the Xperia X10.

Yes, in a move straight out of 2010, Sony Ericsson has provided the 2.1 update to the X10 owners in the US.  The Xperia X10 has been running on 2.1 on unlocked devices for quite some time now and Sony Ericsson has even promised a Gingerbread update later this year for the unlocked phones.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play generated a lot of hype for a phone with a single core CPU in the year 2011. We guess that has something to do with the PlayStation blood it has running in its veins. Now the phone is finally available from O2 UK, after several delays. And they have got an exclusive white color as well. The phone will cost you nothing on a contract and 430 quid if you want it commitment-free.

O2 has talked on the exclusive white PlayStation phone before, bragging about it, even though they had a significant delay of their 1 April release. Then there was the rumor that the Play will hit O2 shops in June, which finally turns out untrue as its already online at the O2 store as we speak.

When Sony Ericsson announced they will release a tool to unlock the bootloader on some of their devices, fans celebrated. One problem has come up though once you unlock, you cannot get official software updates.

A Sony Ericsson developer has posted on the XDA-Developers forums answering some questions. He explains that Over-The-Air updates are not supported since they rely on updating a phone only from a specific firmware version and Sony Ericsson cannot verify that your phone is using that version once you unlock the boot-loader.

Even using the regular software update tool that can update a phone from any version is not currently supported for unlocked. They may enable that in the future, but now there are still unanswered questions as to how allowing updates for unlocked phones will affect the update procedure itself and what that would mean for Sony Ericsson repair and support centers.

Sony Ericsson considers creating recovery ROM that would allow you to put an official ROM with a locked bootloader so that you can update the phone via their software update tool. Note that even if Sony Ericsson releases such a recovery ROM your warranty may be voided even after flashing it.

Sony Ericsson kept their promise and quickly released the first software update for their Xperia PLAY and Arc smartphone flagships. Right now only a few markets are able to experience the goodies of the Facebook-centered update, but more should follow soon.

Sony Ericsson did not specify when each of the markets will be getting the chance to experience 2.3.3 Gingerbread, but mentioned that unbranded Arcs and PLAYs around the globe will be in the first lines. This update will bring the tighter Facebook integration introduced with the latest Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro handsets and will fix some security issues that Sony Ericsson identified.

And here are the areas that will get some improvement:

• Battery performance
• General software stability
• Wi-Fi stability
• HD Video recording performance (Xperia Arc only)
• Touch responsiveness

Sony was victimized by hackers again as a Sony Ericsson website in Canada was breached and the personal data of 2000 people was stolen. Also details on another 8500 users were leaked on a Sony Music Entertainment website in Greece. Among the sensitive information lost were e-mails, passwords and phone numbers. Credit card information was not stolen this time so thats a high five on that account, at least.

As you might remember the Sony Playstation Network was hacked and information on its users credit cards and other data was stolen. I guess Japan was wise enough to prevent the PSN from going online before the necessary preventive actions have been taken.

Sony spokesman, George Boyd has told BBC that Sony Music Entertainment Indonesia site has been hacked and Thailand official Sony site too but no information has been stolen.

In case you have not heard of it, Minecraft has single-handedly become the biggest indie game of the century. Created by Swedish game developer Markus "Notch" Persson in 2009, Minecraft is a completely randomly generated sandbox world that allows players to build out of practically anything they can find. Although the title is still in its beta, as of early February 2011, it had sold over 1,230,000 units and has only been available on PC and Mac, until now.

Assuming you are one of the lucky few who already own or intend on owning a Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, for the time being you will have exclusive access to a new mobile variant of this hit indie title. Developers Mojang were rumored to have been working on versions of the game for both iOS and Android and although there is no news of Apple side of the fence, the PLAY is the first Android device that will be able to run the game.

Mojang spoke of the difficulties and differences of porting a game like Minecraft to mobile devices: "When playing on smartphones you will have a different screen size compared to PC, different hardware, different attention spans and thus the game needs to be customized to fit the mobile specifications" and this version will only officially work on the PLAY for the time being.

The volcano erupted on 21st of May and managed to release more ash in 48 hours than Eyjafjallajökull did during its entire eruption last year, which has earned it 4 (VEI4) rating on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. The volcano is currently busy disrupting air travel in Iceland, Greenland, Scotland and Norway.

The video was shot using Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc in 720p by Thor E. Bachmann. It was taken a mere 1km away from the volcano from the top of Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Iceland. Now usually you would need to add a couple of zeros to that figure to consider it a safe distance, but due to the peculiar nature of the volcano, i.e., it being situated under a lake, it seems to be relatively safe to be in such close proximity to it. Not entirely safe though "…we were getting some ash fall and lava rocks were hitting us frequently", said the author of the video.

Video Below!

Sony Ericsson will be rolling out an update for Android 2.3.3 on their Xperia PLAY and Xperia Arcphones. The update will fix some security issues and will come with Sony Ericsson latest Facebook integration which was introduced with the latest Xperia Mini and Xperia Mini Pro handsets.

The fancy integration with the social network, dubbed Facebook inside Xperia, is not new to us. It will help Facebook become best friends with your Xperia phone by syncing the Facebook contacts, calendar and photos all together. Unlike HTC, who are making an entire phone around the interaction with the social network, Sony Ericsson is just "enriching the experience", as Calum MacDougall, SE Head of Web Service Partnerships, puts it.

Sony Ericsson just announced a new Facebook competition searching phone reviewers among you. The most interesting thing about it is it shows two new touch feature phones the txt pro and the Mix Walkman.

To enter the competition you have to answer a question and write in 50 words or less why you should be chosen. The question is interesting you have to pick one of three options for the names of the two phones. And since only one answer seems reasonable, there you have it, meet the Sony Ericsson txt pro and the Mix Walkman phone.

The Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman phone looks almost exactly like the WT18i, so we might be seeing similar specs. That might mean an 800MHz CPU, 3.2-inch HVGA screen, 3MP camera with VGA@24fps video capture. As for the Sony Ericsson txt pro, we thought we were looking at the Xperia mini pro for a moment there but Sony Ericsson blog post explicitly says the two are feature phones. The txt pro and Mix look quite alike so we would wager a guess and say they have similar specs.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play CDMA will hit Verizon e-shops pretty soon as the telecom has issued an online pre-order page. The Play can be yours for $199 on a two year contract or $499 retail. The phone will hit stores on 26 May, while pre-ordered devices will be shipping a day early, on 25 May.  Should you want the Play on contract, you will have to cash out for a data plan as well.

The Xperia Play has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, 5 MP snapper and, most importantly, slide-out gaming controls and PlayStation-certified badge on its chest. Check out our full review of the thing here. Mind you its the regular GSM version.

Sony Ericsson announced the Xperia mini and mini pro just recently and they were scheduled to hit the market in August. According to O2 though, the Xperia mini is going to launch this June in the UK.

So, in case O2 UK did not make a big mistake, it seems the Xperia mini pro will become available quite ahead of its official release time frame making up for the delayed schedule of the Xperia PLAY launch. O2 UK has listed the phone as coming soon in June and you can bet it will go for free on a 2-year contract.

In case you have missed it, the Xperia mini pro is based on the same Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset as the Arc and Neo coming with a 1GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU and 512MB RAM. It features a 3-inch HVGA Reality display, 5 megapixel camera with 720p video recording, all the usual connectivity and a sliding-out QWERTY keyboard.

A group of new Sony Ericson phones surfaced online and though little is known about those, we have their shots all lined up. The two most interesting members of the group are the CK15i and the ST18i.

The CK15i looks to be the first Sony Ericsson non-smartphone, non-Android device of 2011. This small touchscreen handset will apparently support a 240x400 pixel display, run on SE A200 platform and come complete with a slide-out hardware keyboard. The only other thing we know at this time is a possible name, the Sony Ericsson Txt Pro.

The other mysterious device spotted is the ST18i. Even less is known about this model and due to the fact it sports the 'Xperia' moniker, will as a result probably run some iteration of Android. In the photos above you can see it has an 'HD' camera on the back, a front-facing camera, loud speaker grill and judging by the size of the sim slot, is a little smaller than the Sony Ericsson X8 with the looks of the Xperia Mini, but its hard to tell. We are sure more information will trickle out soon enough and we will be there when it does.

The Sony Ericsson Developer Blog recently published details including a step by step walk-through showing code-savvy users how to build and then flash their own custom Linux kernels onto their Sony Ericsson Android devices. Building on feedback taken from forums such as XDA, the walk-through aims to help users get around troubles such as building and flashing your own custom image .

Once you have unlocked the boot loader, the walk-through shows you how to build a kernel and configure compatibility with the ARM architecture used on Sony Ericsson handsets. It then progresses to creating your custom image and finally flashing it to your device. There is a whole host more information on what to do and how it works in the source article but its great to see companies like Sony Ericsson opening up their devices in this way and a shame that more do not. Whats more, its great Sony Ericsson is embracing the open-source dev community and is trying to be as friendly as possible.

It looks like the Sony Ericsson Walkman line of phones is coming back to life. A new popped up out shortly after the official announcement of Sony Ericsson W8. This time, it is labeled WT18i.

Much like the W8, the specs of the device suggest that it will be a youth-oriented, budget priced handset. The processor of the device is Marvell PXA 920, clocked at 806 MHz and the HVGA screen measures 3.2". The device will have 150MB of internal memory and a microSD card slot up to 32GB cards will be supported.

A 3 MP camera with 480p video recording will have to do for the users photography needs, while the front-facing camera enables video-calls. This functionality will come in a compact package weighing only 110 grams.

Interestingly enough, the OS is listed as "OMS 2.5", which should be based on Android 2.2 Froyo. The OS of choice and the TD-SCDMA network support show that this particular version is China bound, but a worldwide version seems quite possible too.

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday its fresh newborns to the Xperia family the Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro. In spite of being mini and cutesy, the two new phones are not exactly joking around and are here to be taken seriously, both sharing powerful 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM and HD video recording.

But not everything is about whats under the hood. Looks count too and the first live shots of the brand new Xperia are here for you to see. The guys over at SlashGear have spent some quality time with the two devices and have made some photos and videos.

Video Below!

The first PlayStation-certified smartphone, Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play, is finally going to make its debut on the O2 network in UK next month. The carrier was initially expected to launch the handset in April, but reportedly software bugs found at the eleventh hour pushed its release back.

Now however, we have got an official confirmation from the O2 blog that the issues are nearly resolved and the handset will be available in O2 UK network next month. Unfortunately pricing is still a mystery at this point, but we should be getting an update on that soon enough.

Yet, we cannot help but wonder about those alleged bugs. After all, the handset hit the shelves as planned elsewhere and we did not notice any deal-breaking issues when we reviewed it, which leads us to believe that the issues had something to do with the bloatware that O2 is trying to install on the handset.

Sony Ericsson just announced they plan to bump up the Facebook integration on their XPERIA phones to a whole new level. Beyond the obvious single sign-on and contacts and calendar sync, Facebook will now show its face at numerous places throughout the Xperia user interface.

Here is the new stuff we caught so far:

• There is a Like button in the music player, so you can share the tracks you like.
• The photos shared by your friends on Facebook now have a dedicated tab in the Timescape UI.
• Facebook notifications now appear alongside your mised calls and text messages on your lockscreen.
• The Android image gallery now integrates your photo albums from Facebook besides the Picasa web albums.
• A new Media discovery widget will automatically show you the videos and music shared by your friends.
• Besides getting synced with Facebook, contacts now have new tabs full of their likes, interests, wall activity, and photos and videos.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro2 ran away from home and starred in an extensive photoshoot. The diminutive QWERTY droid was snapped from every angle and compared to its predecessor and the XPERIA Pro.

The comparison shots between the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro2, the old mini pro and the XPERIA Pro are especially interesting the new model is only slightly bigger but has a 3-inch display vs. 2.55-inch of the original. The screen also has a higher resolution according to rumors - HVGA instead of QVGA that the original used.

The XPERIA X10 mini pro2 keyboard looks marginally roomier, the battery is bigger (1200mAh) and rumor has it that the phone runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Sony Ericsson has just announced its first phone from the Walkman series to run Android. By the looks of it, the W8 is an XPERIA X8, but with a bit of fancy colors and a WALKMAN logo.

Just like its brother, the X8, the Sony Ericsson W8 sports a 3-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a 3.2MP camera. Under the hood there's a 600MHz single-core processor ticking, with 168MB of RAM.

The W8 will run Android 2.1, which is a bit unfortunate, as most Droids on the market are now running Froyo or even Gingerbread. Nevertheless, this is the first Walkman phone to run the Google mobile OS, which will be cove

red by the Timescape UI.

With Sony Ericsson being kind enough to unlock the XPERIA Arc bootloader, rooting the device was the only thing missing for a grand hacker slam. Well now we have got that one completed, thanks to the ever helpful XDA community.

The best part is that you can try this at home and get full access to the system folders of your very own XPERIA Arc. There is only a single step required so it should not be a problem to anyone who knows their way around smartphones. You will need to unlock your bootloader first though, if you haven’t done so already.

Sony Ericsson announced their financial results for the first quarter of 2011. The company is forming a very tight bond with Android and smartphones account for over 60% of the total phones shipped.

This has driven the Average Selling Price (ASP) to €141 ($200), up 4% sequentially, and the gross margin went up to 33%. Sony Ericsson estimates it has a 5% market share for smartphones.

The total number of units shipped by Sony Ericsson fell to 8.1 million. A drop was expected after the holiday season and has mainly affected the feature phone sales. The new Sony Ericsson Android models came in a bit late to have a major impact on the first quarter sales, so we will have to wait until Q2 to see what kind of impact they will have.

Still, including this quarter, Sony Ericsson has been profitable for over an year and the net income went up to €11 million (compared to €8 million for Q4 of 2010, down compared to €21 million for Q1 of 2010). This is also the first quarter without restructuring charges in quite a while now.

Do you remember the rumors about a better flash on the Japanese version of the XPERIA Arc Acro? Well, the Acro official presentation has just leaked and it shows a single LED flash at the back just like the international Arc.

The Acro has a different waistline though as you can see from the picture it does not have a curved body. The specs seems to be the same as the Arc a 4.2-inch Reality display, 8 megapixel camera with Exmor R sensor, a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM and the usual connectivity package.

We had pretty much written off the Walkman brand at least as far as phones go. However, rumor has it that it might be poised for a comeback in the face of an XPERIA X8 based Android with all the appropriate sound playing internals.

Right now its just a rumor and a photo of a box so no promises. The model number of the droid Walkman is W15, at least thats what it says on the purported box. Here is what else the rumors say the Sony Ericsson W15 droid Walkman will be similar to the XPERIA X8, with a 3-inch HVGA screen, a 600MHz processor and a 3.2MP camera.

Sony Ericsson announced today the launch of its own channel in Google Android Market. The company is the first among the major manufacturers to undertake such a venture. The purpose of the channel is to provide the users of Sony Ericsson Android phones with recommendations for apps in order to "enhance your Sony Ericsson most entertaining experience."

The channel will be available to all Sony Ericsson users via a button on the Android Market home screen which will replace the link to My Apps (My apps will be still available by pressing the menu button in the Android Market).

Stay tuned for more info from us...

Sony Ericsson came up with another brilliant way to advertise its new XPERIA lineup starting with an Arc video. They replaced all windows and windshields with tin sheets and then cut three holes for the XPERIA Arc screens.

It seems the two phones on the front windshield and the other on the driver window were enough for making this wild video Below!

A picture taken with Sony Ericsson XPERIA Acro you can see its back in the reflection

In the past few days we stumbled upon leaked pictures of the Japanese version of XPERIA Arc called Acro. We decided to pass that news since it was headed to NTT DoCoMo only. Well, the new leaked pictures of its back definitely caught our attention. It seems Sony Ericsson may have put a Xenon flash on the Acro something many Arc users would have appreciated a lot.

The photo looks like XPERIA Play above was taken with an XPERIA Acro and you can clearly see its back on the reflection. Here is an actual photo of the back cover:

Unfortunately there is no clear photo to suggest if this is a Xenon flash or a dual-LED one. But one thing is sure the Japanese XPERIA Acro has better flash than the international Arc and it will be a lot more capable of shooting into the night. I am sure this will make angry a lot of Sony Ericsson loyal fans.

There is also a more fresh picture of the XPERIA Acro with a single LED flash, but it might be just a fake mock-up.

It looks like the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Neo will not be hitting UK shores and getting into the hands of prospective buyers as early as the 19 April.

UK retailer Clove who originally reported that release date have stated that: "We published this information on good faith, but since this post, there has been discussion of delays and we have now have official confirmation from Sony Ericsson that the Neo will not be launched until July in the UK market".

It would appear that the delay stems from the disruption caused by the Japanese earthquakes and as such this has created a knock-on effect to Sony Ericsson supply chain. "They are working to find alternative supply solutions, but at this time, July is the earliest release date that Sony Ericsson wish to commit too".

Most phone manufacturers are very proactive on Facebook recently, reaching to their fans mainly for product advertising and news. Sony Ericsson is taking this initiative one step further, and asks its Facebook fans about how their future microUSB cables should look like. As you can see in the photos above, there are three choices for you to consider the straight connecting cable or the two that are top or bottom-angled.

Sony Commented: "We are currently thinking about which design we should use for our USB plugs, which do you think we should use? Hit like on whichever USB connection you think we should use, and why not comment on it to let us know why too?"

 

To enter in the survey and place your vote for the microUSB cable configuration you like, click on the corresponding picture and give it a "Like". The one with most "Likes" is most likely going to be Sony Ericsson new design for their microUSB cables.

It looks like the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Neo will not be hitting UK shores and getting into the hands of prospective buyers as early as the 19 April.

UK retailer Clove who originally reported that release date have stated that: "We published this information on good faith, but since this post, there has been discussion of delays and we have now have official confirmation from Sony Ericsson that the Neo will not be launched until July in the UK market".

It would appear that the delay stems from the disruption caused by the Japanese earthquakes and as such this has created a knock-on effect to Sony Ericsson supply chain. "They are working to find alternative supply solutions, but at this time, July is the earliest release date that Sony Ericsson wish to commit too".

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play has just hit the shelves in a number of countries and the marketing campaign has finally started to make sense.Instead of the previous creepy and even scary ads, we now have a more mature and adrenaline-rushing video experience.

Video Below!

Computer manufacturers are hot on making their own tablets. Tablets with slim and sleek hardware, ARM-based CPUs and tablet-oriented opeating systems seem to be the the future of portable computing and entertainment and every manufacturers wants in. Well, its Sony turn with Sir Howard Stringer, Sony CEO, just went ahead and confirmed the company plans of unveiling a tablet.

It seems sir Howard Stringer is on a roll these days. First he said that the next iPhone will have an Exmor R BSI made by Sony. Now he was cited by the news portal Nikkei as saying that Sony will make an Android 3.0-powered tablet.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 held its ground against hacker attacks for ages, but its defenses have finally been breached. The bootloader of the device was just unlocked, allowing for custom kernels to be installed.

So we are now expecting custom kernels to start flowing in, bringing various tweaks to the Sony Ericsson last year flagship. The first one was delivered It removes the 32 fps cap that the X10 has, improves battery life by undervolting the CPU and implements native USB/Wi-Fi tethering. The thing is still in alpha and there is no support for it, but you can try it as long as you know what you are doing.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Neo is on its way to British retailer Clove and it will take a couple of weeks to get there. The Gingerbread running droid is pretty close specs-wise to the Arc flagship, but with a bit less extravagance and with a price tag that's more easy to swallow.

You can check out our XPERIA Neo preview for a more in-depth look into the phone but here are the basics a 3.7-inch FWVGA Reality display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine, 8MP camera with Exmor-R image sensor and 720p video recording, 1GHz CPU running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, HDMI port.

All this gadgetry is fitted into the ergonomic shell of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Neo, which carries over the curved back and central camera placement from the Vivaz.

The successor to the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro reminds us again of its existence through another leak. The diminutive QWERTY-side slider refreshes the specs of the original with new software, bigger screen and more powerful internals.

We first saw the X10 mini pro successor break cover when it aced a couple of benchmarks, beating a Froyo-running Nexus One. Speaking of OS versions, the XPERIA Duo is currently running Android 2.3 Gingerbread with an updated version of the small-screen UI by Sony Ericsson. The four corners of the screen still hold shortcuts, but now each packs four shortcuts at. By the looks of it the one widget per screen restriction remains though.

A quick weekend note here for all of the Canadian mobile junkies out there. Yesterday, Rogers announced that the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc and Xperia PLAY are both available for pre-order. Cool beans for not only for gamers, but for Sony Ericsson and Android fans as well. Both devices pack a pretty good feature set with the PLAY featuring quite a unique form-factor, sure to put a smile on many a gamers face.

The Xperia arc packs Android 2.3, a 4.2-inch (854 x 480) display, 8.1 MP camera with 2.46x smart zoom and video, 512 MB internal memory, WiFi, GPS and more. Lots of power, lots of features, and in the end its a solid Android-powered handset. I would call this the business choice of the two.

For what its worth, the Xperia arc and PLAY come preloaded with different games than you will find in the US. The devices will pack the following titles:

• Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior
• Star Battalion
• FIFA 10
• Tetris
• Crash Bandicoot

Today the day that the XPERIA Play hits the world in many markets UK, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. With a number of optimized games and Playstation 1 games included in the Android Market and Playstation Pocket to help the Play to a great start.

In the UK the XPERIA Play has been delayed for most of the major carriers, but it seems that T-Mobile UK has the Play in stock after all. Also we have received a tip from a source in Tesco phone shops in the UK, saying that they have the XPERIA Play in stock too. Also we have received information about the phone being available at the Carphone Warehouse in the UK.

The amount of games, available for the XPERIA Play is more than 60, and they will all be downloadable in the first week. Also the game Asphalt 6 by Gameloft is an exclusive free game on the Play now thats great news right there.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play was supposed to launch tomorrow in the UK, but SE has just confirmed that the phone will be delayed for some retailers in the UK. While it would still meet its planned 1 April launch date, it will not make it to all interested retailers in the UK as it was supposed to.

Here is the Sony Ericsson statement:

We can confirm that the Xperia™ PLAY handsets are still planned to launch in the UK for 1st April, as originally communicated. However, as of today, we have experienced a freight issue that may impact the number of Xperia™ PLAYs arriving at some retail outlets. This said, consumers can purchase Xperia™ PLAY as of April 1st at a number of stores across the UK.

O2 UK was first to inform its users about the delay a while back, blaming software issues. Now today Vodafone UK announced too that their pre-ordered devices will not be arriving tomorrow and the device will not be making it to Vodafone stores either.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play will be launching officially on 1 April. And according to CNET Asia there will be a massive number of optimized games for it, available at the very beginning.

We have prepared the list, which CNET Asia compiled, to show you which games will be served to new owners in the Playstation Pocket store. CNET Asias say that there will be about 71 titles XPERIA Play-ready in the coming months, while Sony Ericsson has said that upon the official launch there will be about 50.

Here is the full games list of the upcoming XPERIA Play-optimized games.

Sony Ericsson has listened into the developers requests and will allow them to unlock the bootloader on the latest XPERIA smartphones Arc, Neo, Pro and Play. The process will be a secure and legal and will become possible this spring.

This is surely a good news for all the Android developers. According to Sony Ericsson, it has found a way to allow the devs unlock the boot loader in a secure way and without sharing it. The compatible XPERIA phones will be Arc, Neo, Pro and Play. The XPERIA X10 family will not be considered "due to technical and legal reasons."

Not all the available model variants will be able to take advantage of the unlocking though. The carrier-locked devices and some region-specific ones will not be able to get their bootloaders unlocked. If your XPERIA phone is able to connect to the Fastboot tool in the Android SDK, then your phone meets the requirements and you will be OK.

Sony Ericsson also warns that you may void your warranty if you use unsigned ROMs and in case of damage you might need to pay a handling fee at the service center. They recommend that only advance developers do bootloader unlock.

It seems that the guys over at Sony Ericsson have not forgotten about the godfather of their Android lineup, while promoting their second wave XPERIA smartphones. Actually Rikard Skogberg, the man who unveiled this juicy information to the world, says that experience with the XPERIA Arc and XPERIA Neo phones has helped Sony Ericsson engineers to start working on the Gingerbread update for the X10.

Skogberg wrote that the reason behind this upcoming update is that Sony Ericsson listens to its clients requests. Well, okay we guess its technically true. Eclair and multi-touch did reach the X10, no matter how long people had to wait for them. The update will start rolling-out in the summer time. It will be exclusive for non-carrier-branded devices so far. Locked carrier-dependent devices will just have to wait for new developments. Reportedly, some users may not get the Gingerbread update because of their carrier situation.

On the changes that Gingerbread would bring, Mr. Skogberg had this to say: 

"In short, we plan to bring similar software and functionality to Xperia X10 as we have in our new 2011 Xperia smartphones. Our ambition is to provide the majority of functionality of the Gingerbread platform, as well as the Sony Ericsson specific User Experience and features."

Also some current software functions will disappear. The camera app will get the standard Gingerbread UI, Mediascape will be replaced by the newest Sony Ericsson Android media widgets, included in the Arc, Neo and Play. The Sony Ericsson Backup and Restore app will be lost since Gingerbread does not support it.

The so-called PlayStation phone was expected to launch with the O2 UK network on the 1st of April. But things will nott be going as planned, according to Stuart Hibberd head of O2 device testing team.

The smartphone, reportedly, has some software issues which need to be ironed out before it can hit the shelves. The delay is a precaution so that O2 customers do not end up with negative experience, Mr. Hibberd says.

The XPERIA Play was scheduled to launch with all major UK carriers on the first day of April. So far software problems have been reported only by O2, so the launch date should be kept by Vodafone and Orange. This could really end up being a bad blow for O2.

It seems that the guys over at Sony Ericsson have not forgotten about the godfather of their Android lineup, while promoting their second wave XPERIA smartphones. Actually Rikard Skogberg, the man who unveiled this juicy information to the world, says that experience with the XPERIA Arc and XPERIA Neo phones has helped Sony Ericsson's engineers to start working on the Gingerbread update for the X10.

Skogberg wrote that the reason behind this upcoming update is that Sony Ericsson listens to its clients requests. Well, okay - we guess it's technically true. Eclair and multi-touch did reach the X10, no matter how long people had to wait for them. The update will start rolling-out in the summer time. It will be exclusive for non-carrier-branded devices so far. Locked carrier-dependent devices will just have to wait for new developments. Reportedly, some users may not get the Gingerbread update because of their carrier situation.

On the changes that Gingerbread would bring, Mr. Skogberg had this to say: "In short, we plan to bring similar software and functionality to XperiaTM X10 as we have in our new 2011 Xperia smartphones. Our ambition is to provide the majority of functionality of the Gingerbread platform, as well as the Sony Ericsson specific User Experience and features."

Also some current software functions will disappear. The camera app will get the standard Gingerbread UI, Mediascape will be replaced by the newest Sony Ericsson Android media widgets, included in the Arc, Neo and Play. The Sony Ericsson Backup and Restore app will be lost since Gingerbread does not support it.

Its no secret that the future of Sony Ericsson as a company is hugely dependent on the success of their XPERIA smartphone lineup. So its no wonder that company is throwing so much effort in their ad campaigns, especially the Play one.

We now got word that Sony Ericsson is about to launch a massive ad campaign to promote their new products when they launch in the UK. The XPERIA Play, XPERIA Neo and the flagship XPERIA Arcwill hit the shelves in Britain on 1 April and the joint venture wants to make sure that you know how cool they are.

The media campaign is said to cost 4 million British pounds, which is the costliest media campaign Sony Ericsson has done in the past two years. The main focus falls on the XPERIA Play the first "Sony Playstation certified device". Sony Ericsson plan to air plenty of XPERIA commercials on TV, but it be also using other medias for the campaign online ads, press and, of course, billboards.