In the past Sony – formerly Sony Ericcsson – has bought us more rugged phones that the run of the mill. Phones that would actually be able to survive in the wilderness, to an extent. They seem content to do it again with a couple of new handsets to hit around the third quarter of the year.
First up is the Xperia Go, clocking in at a diminutive 3.5-inches but, don’t let the size fool you. Under the hood there’s a capable dual-core processor clocked at a reasonable 1Ghz, the display is – somewhat disappointingly – sporting a resolution of 480×320 and confusingly running Gingerbread – Sony, of course, promises updates to Android 4.0. Along with these run of the mill specs for a little device there’s also a 5-megapixel snapper along with some fancy water tracking that we’ve seen before on the Xperia Active, meaning you can use these phones when there wet. Which sounds fantastic, living in England means a lot of rain and my Nexus is terrible in the rain, even for a simple quick text, it’s infuriating. You’ll be able to buy the Go when it hits in black, white or yellow.
Onto more exotic fare we have the Xperia Acro S which ramps the screen size to a more sizeable 4.3-inches and squashes a lovely 720p resolution in there, too. It looks very much like this is going to be the global version of Sony’s Japan-only Xperia Acro HD. extra goodies include a most-welcome 12-megapixel camera with shutter button to boot as well as PlayStation certification. Meaning this should have some serious gaming chops, perhaps this could be an upgrade from angry Xperia Play devices? This one will come in pink and white colors, no black, strangely.
Both phones sport IP55 and IP57 ratings for dust and water resistance, so if you live in a desert by an Oasis these could be the phones for you. Seriously, though, these seem like solid devices for Sony and something that is under-represented in the market, a pair of phones that are resistant to the elements but actually good phones as well. These should be hitting Q3 and in the US the Xperia Go will be launched as the Xperia Advance, release is unknown as of now.
Source: Engadget