New Xperia T hands-on photos emerge, show it from all angles

The Sony LT30i Mint, or the Xperia T, as its DLNA certification suggests, has once again escaped the Sony R&D center and posed in front of a camera.

The 35 new photos, courtesy of nixanbal.com, show the Xperia T from all angles and even demonstrates what the 4.3" droid looks like in hand. Here are the most interesting parts of the photo session.

The Xperia T is powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S4 (Krait) processor and features 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. At the back, it features a 13MP camera with LED flash and an NFC chip.
Sony will officially announce the Xperia T at a pre-IFA event on August 29, where it's expected to unveil a number of smartphones including the Xperia J, Xperia SL and the LT29i Hayabusa.

Samsung wanted its UI to look more like the iPhone's

Another piece of evidence against Samsung has leaked from the court documents that shows how Samsung took inspiration from the iPhone's UI and tried to make their look and work similarly.

This 132 page internal document from Samsung compares several different aspects of the iPhone's UI, from the UI animations to the placement of the buttons with those of the Samsung Galaxy S.
On each page you will find one feature from the iPhone's UI, a note on what's good about it and a similar feature on the Galaxy S with a note saying how it is worse compared to the same feature on the iPhone.
Below each of these you will find a suggestion to improve the said function on the Galaxy S, which in many cases equates to make it look and behave more like its iOS counterpart.

 You can find the entire 263 page PDF document (only 132 pages are in English) below.44

Sony Xperia neo L bets on ICS and a bigger screen

The Sony Xperia neo L is a blast from the past – it’s the second redesign of the 2011 neo model and brings some improvements as well as some setbacks. For one, it runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, even though some newer Sony devices are still waiting to get the update.

The other change is the bigger screen – it now spans to 4″ instead of the original 3.7″. The resolution is set at WVGA – a bit less than the FWVGA of the previous models. It loses a 54 pixel-wide bar and moves to a 15:9 aspect ratio instead of 16:9.
At 12.2mm the neo L is slightly thinner than previous models but also taller and wider to accommodate the larger screen. The weight has increased by just under 6g, to 131.5g.

The redesign has its downsides – it drops the microHDMI port and the hardware shutter key, two things that set the neo and neo V apart from most of their direct rivals. The Xperia neo L uses a 5MP camera capable of 720p video recording, just like the neo V, though the camera interface here is vanilla Android here, not the custom Sony camera app.
Here’s a hands-on video of the Sony Xperia neo L that shows off both its hardware and its software.

Sony LT30i 'Mint' to be called Xperia T, certification reveals

The Sony Xperia LT30i Mint is yet to become official, but it has been a frequent visitor to our news section, it even got a lengthy preview. While it wore its unofficial guise in those appearances, it went in for DLNA certification under its official name.
DLNA's web site list the phone as Sony Xperia T - making it a member of the single letter Xperia club. Just a quick reminder, the phone has a 4.3" 720p screen, 1.5GHz dual-core Krait processor and a 13MP camera.

 We tried to figure out if there's any pattern behind the letters, but gave up pretty quickly - T comes after S (as it should, being the newer model), but then comes U and that is a lower-end device than either of those two. Things get even more confusing when you consider the upcoming Xperia SL, which has two letters.

Anyway, the DLNA certification doesn’t give us much other than the name - DLNA capabilities are common among Android phones, Xperias included.
So, we'll probably just have to wait until August 29, when Sony is holding an event just before IFA starts. The Sony LT30i Xperia T is one of the likely candidates to be announced at that event, along with a few others.

Sony adds black, silver and white to the Xperia SL color palette

The Xperia SL already showed us its fun personality posing in blue and pink. Now, thanks to some press shots ePrice has managed to acquire, Sony shows the Xperia SL means business, too.

The pieces of the Xperia SL puzzle are slowly falling into place, but not as fast as we'd hope. What we know thus far is that the smartphone is going to be a successor to the Xperia S and will feature an overclocked 1.7GHz processor core inside its MSM8260 chipset.
Sony is expected to unveil the smartphone alongside the Xperia J and the LT29i Hayabusa in a pre-IFA event in Berlin later this month. August 28 just can't come fast enough.

Leaked Sony slides reveal a new Xperia tablet

According to some leaked slides, Sony is going to release a new Android tablet under the Xperia brand, thus unifying its smartphone and tablet business into one brand.

If the slides prove to be correct, the tablet is going to feature a 9.4-inch display with a 1280×800 pixels resolution powered by the quad-core Tegra 3 chipset.
Just like the company’s rather unsuccessful Tablet S, the upcoming Xperia tablet is going to rock the “wedge” design, but will boast 8.8mm thickness, making it 42% thinner than its predecessor. The battery is upgraded to a 6000mAh and boasts 10-hour browsing time.
All of this will be put into an all-aluminum construction, which would also be splashproof. Another good thing is the 8MP camera at the back, and a 1MP unit at the front for video chatting.
Naturally, there will be some accessories available, too. Among them will be a charging cradle, dock, speaker, stand and a carrying case.
With an expected release in September, the 16GB version of the tablet will cost $450, the 32GB a hundred more, and the 64GB version will retail for $650. However, an insider from Sony firmly believes the prices will start from $400, which is good news.

Sony is yet to decide which 2011 Xperia phones will get Jelly Bean

When a Sony spokesman let it slip that the company wouldn't update its 2011 Xperia Android smartphones to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, users got upset. Big time!

 But now it's time to turn that frown upside down, for Sony has released an official statement that this information was given "in error". The company says it's still researching which of the devices will actually get to receive the tasty Jell Bean update.

We are actively investigating Android OS upgrades for all devices, but in the meantime, our Ice Cream Sandwich rollout for Xperia S and 2011 Xperia smartphones continues as planned.

This is great news for owners of 2011 Xperia devices like the Xperia Arc and Xperia Mini Pro. All there's left to do now is wait and believe in Sony, though at that rate, we wouldn't expect ay update earlier than the holiday season.

Sony Xperia LT29i Hayabusa previewed before launch

The Sony Xperia LT29i Hayabusa (the international version of the Xperia GX) has teased the rumor mill with a few spy shots of the device and a couple of camera samples, but now someone at ePrice got their hands on an engineering sample and did an extensive preview of the phone, complete with 13MP camera samples. It's a bit odd, but the prototype bears the "Sony Ericsson" logo.
Anyway, the Hayabusa is 8.6mm thick - a hair thinner than the Xperia arc - and features a similar curved back. The weight is reported at 127g. Inside is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 with a dual-core Krait processor, which will run at 1.5GHz at launch (the engineering sample is underclocked to 918MHz), 1GB of RAM and Adreno 225 GPU.

 The screen is a 4.6" LCD with 720p resolution and there are no physical keys on the front. Here it's shown next to that of the HTC One X and exhibits color shifting when viewed at an angle (this is typical of Xperia phones).

 

The XPERIA logo below the screen is illuminated and even pulses in rhythm when there' music.

The Sony Xperia LT29i Hayabusa runs a customized version of Android 4.0.4. Check out the video below, which shows the task switcher that also launches floating widgets (similar to the mini apps in Samsung's tablets). The task switcher is at 1:30, but the rest is pretty interesting to

The star of the show is at the back - a 13MP camera with LED flash that can record FullHD video. The camera samples look really good, though there's no decent video sample (only one shot in the dark and heavily compressed by the video sharing service).
Also on the back is a noise cancelling microphone and an NFC antenna. Below the back cover is a 1700mAh battery plus SIM and microSD card slots. Unlike some Xperia devices of late, the battery is removable, which is a relief.

We don't know for certain when the Sony Xperia LT29i Hayabusa will launch - the Xperia GX (that's the Japanese version of the phone) will launch on August 9 according to rumors, but the Hayabusa may come out as late as October. 

Sony's tiny Xperia Tipo headed to O2 and Orange in the UK

Sony's latest entry-level smartphone, the Xperia Tipo, is set to launch on O2 and Orange in the UK from next month. Announced in mid-June, the pint-size handset comes loaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well as Sony's UXP NXT software. That makes the Xperia Tipo the first entry-level Sony handset to ship with ICS.

Hardware-wise, the Xperia Tipo provides enough horsepower for a basic Android smartphone experience -- a 3.2-inch screen, an 800MHz CPU, a 3.2MP rear camera and 1500mAh battery, which Sony says can deliver more than 24 hours of usage. Internal storage is split between 768MB for apps and 2.5GB for media, and that's expandable via a microSD card slot. That's all wrapped up in a neatly-designed package reminiscent of last year's Xperia Active.

An O2 "coming soon" page indicates that the Xperia Tipo will be arriving sometime in August. There's no word on pricing yet, but we'd expect the phone to sell for around £100 on Pay As You Go, or to be given away for free with 24 month contracts.

Entry level Sony Xperia J leaks again ahead of announcement

The Xperia J leaked a few times before and we already know everything there is to know about it. This time though, the photos are a lot clearer and show three different flavors of the phone.

The Xperia J is rumored to be an entry level droid based on the dated Qualcomm MSM7227(GSM)/MSM7627(CDMA) Snapdragon S1 chipset, which features a 1GHz Scorpion processor and an Adreno 200 GPU. The phone is built around a 4-inch WVGA TFT display and packs a 5MP camera with LED flash plus the whole connectivity shebang – Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G with HSPA and Bluetooth.
The Xperia J is expected to launch with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The official announcement should happen at this year’s IFA in the end of August.

Sony LT30p Mint previewed ahead of announcement

The upcoming Sony LT30p Mint from Sony did a few rounds a couple of weeks ago, when some camera samples leaked alongside a specs sheet that had flagship written all over it.
Today, it seems that Mobile-Review has not only gotten their hands on the Mint, but managed to snap so many pictures of the smartphone and its interface, that it's safe to say we've got a preview on our hands, and all of that before the device is even officially announced by Sony.

What we see today confirms the specs leak from earlier this month:

• 4.3" display of 720p resolution
• Qualcomm MSM8960 dual-core Krait processor
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage, expandable via microSD
• 13MP camera with HD front-facing 
  Speaking of release date, the Mint is expected to be out by September, so we're probably looking at the official announcement coming at the Sony press conference on August 29. The expected retail price is €560, which may be a bit steep for a device which cannot readily compete (according to benchmarks) with the current upper-echelon smartphones on the market, such as the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X. Time will tell if that will continue to be the case when the device hits shelves in a couple of months.