Live shots of the Sony Xperia LT29i surface, looks impressive

So far, we just have spy shots and mock ups of what the Xperia LT29i would look like once it actually hit the streets. We knew it would be based on the Xperia GX that Sony launched for the Japanese market back in May but we didn’t know what the final design would look like. Lucky for us, ePrice managed to get their hands on an engineering sample of the Hayabusa and have done quite an in-depth preview of the device, which includes some nice sample shots from the 13MP camera.

Slim and sexy

The phone is all glass from the front without any capacitive buttons. Instead, you get onscreen buttons just like the Galaxy Nexus, which is quite a bold move from Sony considering everyone else is sticking to capacitive buttons for their handsets. The backside of the phone is rather plain but appears to have a rubberized coating of sorts so holding it should feel good and you should also get a good grip in damp conditions. The side profile reveals the ‘arc’ design that was rumoured back then. The phone actually measures just 8.6mm in thickness and weighs around 127g, so it’s slim and light as well. The prototype rocked a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 SoC, which includes a dual-core Krait CPU running at 1.5GHz. Whether Sony continues to bundle the S4 in the retail units as well entirely depends if Qualcomm is able to sort out the shortage of S4 chips. If not, then we may see the phone launch with a different SoC, possibly a NovaThor-based chipset. Along with Android 4.0.4 onboard, the phone also seems to be rocking a slightly different version of Timescape, which now includes a task switcher. The notification bar also seems tweaked a bit. A new addition also includes floating widgets, which according to the video, can be used in the menus as well.

No more capacitive buttons

The star of the show however is the 13MP camera and from the sample shots, it seems to be doing its job pretty well for a prototype phone. Last but not the least; the phone will have a removable 1700mAh battery along with a microSD card slot. Rumour has it that the phone is expected to launch somewhere in October so it should be just in time for Diwali season in India.

Here are some of the highlights of the phone along with a short hands-on video. For more pictures and camera samples, hit this link here.

• 4.6 inch display with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi (Hot spot), Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA
• NFC, Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0
• GPS with A-GPS support
• 13 megapixel with LED flash, front camera present
• Stereo FM Radio
• memory expandable via microSD, 1GB LP DDR2 RAM
• HDMI for AV out