Updated: Pre-orders for the Sony Xperia P starting to appear, release imminent?

[Guest Victor von Zeppelin]

The Xperia P, Sony’s middle child in its NXT line up has started appearing for pre-order. It can be found in a Sim-free form at some online retailers, who are offering the device at prices ranging from £315 (at Unlocked-mobiles.com) to £380 (at places like Play.com). It’s pretty obvious where I’d go to get one&#33; A date of 7th May is being thrown around at the moment, which seems like a realistic launch time.<br />

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The Xperia P seems like a solid mid-range device. Headline specs include its 4inch qHD display that features “WhiteMagic” (Yes, I know, it’s an awful name) technology, which in essence adds a forth, white subpixel next to the usual triad of Red, Green and Blue. This will mean it features twice the subpixels of the much maligned Pentile arrangement and should keep screen enthusiasts pleased, especially with its 275 dpi resolution.<br />

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Other features include ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor U8500 CPU – a fairly new entrant to the SoC arena, but should compete well. It features a Dual Core 1Ghz CPU, and an Adreno 205 GPU. It sounds like a decent performer, but not anything revolutionary. The design of the device is very much reminiscent of the Xperia S, as one would expect.<br />

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It seems like this phone is trying to meet an interesting half way point between HTC’s One S and One V. Whilst vastly less expensive than the One S, the screen should be far superior, but the device will be hampered by a slower SoC. Versus the One V, the Xperia P will be much faster and have a better screen, but will be a tad more expensive and possibly have a slightly lower build quality.<br />

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Finally, it should be noted that the Xperia P only ships with Android 2.3, but an ICS update should appear very shortly afterwards.<br />

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You can pre-order the Xperia P from many places. Unlocked-Mobiles seem to be doing it cheapest. Via: HotUKDeals<br />

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Update: Some news from Clove suggests that Xperia P will be launching instead on the 28th May. They say news comes from Sony, so it should be reliable. Also mentioned is the lowest end device of the line, the Xperia U, which will launch at the same time. Source: Clove<br />

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Find the whole spec sheet in the white paper here: Sony<div style='text-align: center;'><img src='a0f2a4e8f1a8dfd46bbd6ce3663ebef5.jpg' alt='' /></div><div style='text-align: center;'><img src='' alt='' /></div><br />

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