14 DAY TRIAL // The first live pictures of the Xperia ST21i Tapioca leaked last month, along with some of the smartphone’s specs.
Although there are no details on the handset’s availability or pricing options, we suspect that Sony Mobile plans to go official with the Xperia ST21i Tapioca within the next few weeks.
Russian site Mobile-Review had the chance to take the smartphone for a spin and from the looks of it, this is just an entry-level Android phone that will probably be aimed at emerging markets, such as India.
On the positive side, the Xperia ST21i Tapioca is expected to run the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. In addition, rumor has it that the smartphone will be priced at 260 USD (200 EUR) off-contract.
Furthermore, Sony Xperia ST21i Tapioca sports a 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen display that supports 320 x 480 pixels resolution.
On the back, the handset packs a mediocre 3-megapixel photo snapper with fixed-focus and video recorder. Unfortunately, Xperia ST21i Tapioca does not feature a LED flash, so users won’t be able to take pictures in darker environments.
Hardware-wise, the smartphone is pretty “cheap” and embeds an 800 MHz single-core processor, which is complemented by an Adreno 200 graphics processing unit and 512 MB of RAM. For the time being, it’s unclear whether the Xperia ST21i Tapioca will boast a microSD card slot for memory expansion.
Last but not least, Sony Xperia ST21i Tapioca is powered by an 1460 mAh Li-Ion battery, which has yet to be rated by the manufacturer.
Even though there’s nothing impressive about the Xperia ST21i Tapioca, it will probably be very popular among other low-end smartphones, especially given the fact that it offers Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.
