It’s codenamed Rachel but we’ll see this Android-powered smartphone debut as the Xperia X3 and sporting a custom Sony Ericsson UI.
Another Big Brand is about to add its marketing muscle to Google’s Android platform.
A pre-order listing on the Web site of gadget house Expansys has revealed that Sony Ericcson’s rumoured ‘Rachel’ Android handset will join the Xperia family of smartphones as the X3. While there’s no price or release date listed, neither of those can be too far away.
In the meantime, Sony Ericsson looks to have the hottest Android phone on the market.
It’s believed to be packing a 1GHz ARM ‘SnapDragon’ CPU behind its 4 inch touchscreen panel driven at 852 x 480 pixels. which equates to a true 16:9 aspect ratio.
The 8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and 8x digital zoom outclasses HTC’s Android phones. But before you can go mad taking photos and queuing up music and video, you’ll need to arm yourself with a microSDHC card – the X3 won’t have any significant amount of on-board memory.
There’s good news for Optus and Vodafone customers: the X3 supports 3G HSDPA on both the 2100MHz and 900MHz bands (no mention of 850MHz except as a 2G band, sorry Telstra). Wi-Fi, GPS, stereo Bluetooth and a standard 3.5mm audio jack round out the specs.
Sony Ericsson has also developed a custom UI to overlay Android which includes the panels of the Xperia X1 but goes way beyond.
You can check it out for yourself courtesy of a UI video
leaked to YouTube – this shows the unique 3D card-style UI which displays emails, SMS texts, phone calls, Facebook and Twitter updates from each contact onto a single screen.
And if you’re wondering what happened to the Xperia X2, that’s expected to arrive in time for the official launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, whenever that will be.
The X2 will pack 512MB of RAM with a microSD slot for memory expansion; an 8.1 megapixel lens; 3.5 inch WVGA organic LED (OLED) touchscreen; GPS, and what’s said to be a faster CPU to reduce the X1’s noticeable lag.
Like the X1, the X2 will sport customised ‘panels’ overlaying the OS – one of the panels is tipped to be a remote player for the PS3.