14 DAY TRIAL // Sony unveiled the Xperia S and Xperia ion smartphone back in January, at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Although the company did not reveal the Xperia S release date, all rumors pointed to a March release.
It appears that Android fans living in the UK will be the first Europeans to be able to grab the Xperia S. According to SoMobile, Sony Xperia S in white is now available for pre-order at major retailer Phones4U.
Customers can grab this one for free on select plans from major carriers in the country, such as Orange, Vodafone and O2.
BuyMobilePhones, a smaller UK-based retailers offers about the same deals but claims it will start shipping the smartphone in the week commencing March 5.
Those who wish to commit to a cheap plan and get the Xperia S for free should subscribe to a 24-month £28.50 (45 USD or 35 EUR) Orange tariff, which will offer them 600 minutes, 3000 SMSs and only 1GB of data.
Alternatively, customers can purchase the white Sony Xperia S for £89 (140 USD or 110 EUR) and sign up for a 24-month £21.50 (45 USD or 35 EUR) O2 tariff, which will provide them with 200 minutes, 3000 SMSs and 500 MB of mobile data.
The Xperia S is one of the first smartphone launched with only Sony’s branding logo. According to Phone’s 4U the smartphone is due to arrive in stock on March 13, so customers who pre-order the device should expect to receive their Xperia S units around that timeframe.
The smartphone boasts a stunning 4.3-inch LED-backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen display, which is based on Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine and supports 720 x 1280 pixels resolution.
Although the Xperia S will be shipped with Android 2.3 Gingerbread at launch, Sony plans to deploy an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade within the following months.
It is also worth mentioning that the Xperia S is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon processor, and packs 32 GB of internal memory, 1GB of RAM, but no microSD card slot for memory expansion.