14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Sony Ericsson's Xperia arc S has just been launched in the UK via Vodafone, while Xperia pro is about the make its debut next week, as well.
Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S is available for free from Vodafone UK with new two-year agreements at £31 per month that will net customers 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500 MB of data.
A cheaper £26 per month plan is also available with the Xperia arc S, but then customers will have to pay an additional £99 for the handset.
A follow-up of the original Xperia arc, Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S was unveiled last month and made its first appearance at IFA 2011.
However, aside the bump in processor's speed, the Xperia arc S does not offer anything new in terms of specs and features the same hardware configuration and design as the original version.
The phone measures 125 x 63 mm and is only 8.7 mm, which makes it one of the slimmest Android phones available on the market.
The Xperia arc S is perfectly balanced at 117g (battery included) and feels excellent when kept in hand.
The device comes with a brilliant 4.2-inch LED-backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen display, which is based on Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine and features a scratch-resistant surface.
The screen supports 16 million colors, 480 x 854 pixels resolution and offers accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and multi-touch input method.
Xperia arc S has the same amount of memory as the standard version: 1 GB storage (320 MB user-available), 512 MB of RAM and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB, 8 GB memory card included).
Another strong point of the smartphone is the 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, video calling, face and smile detection, 3D sweep panorama, image stabilization and HD video recording capabilities.
The phone is powered by Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread with Sony Ericsson's Timescape user interface layered on top.