Sony Xperia SP rumoured to launch this week

Rumours about Sony’s upcoming smartphone—dubbed the Xperia SP—have been flying all over the place. There’s a new one making the rounds on the Internet that states that the company will be launching the Xperia SP next week. This would be a very short time—almost immediately—after the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona. We got in touch with sources from Sony and as of now, they have been unable to confirm or deny the imminent launch of the smartphone.

We’ve been seeing a lot of rumours and leaks about the smartphone, dubbed as the HuaShan with the model number C530X. Earlier this month, we got a good look at the smartphone and how it looks compared to the Xperia V. The Xperia SP will be powered by a 1.7GHz processor from Qualcomm and an Adreno 320 GPU. The phone also appears to have a slightly larger screen than that of the Xperia V, measuring at 4.5-inches.

The Xperia SP on the left, and the Xperia V on the right

It also has a lock button on the side, as is the norm for Sony’s recent handsets. The phone will be capable of LTE, and the material of the body seems to be plastic. The back of the handset can be removed to reveal a microSIM and microSD card slot, but the battery doesn’t seem to be replaceable. The Xperia SP will run on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box.

The name of the handset, earlier dubbed the C530X, was revealed alongside the C210X, which will be named the Xperia L. The Xperia L is expected to run on a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon chipset, which could either be the MSM8227 or the MSM8627. The graphics of the handset will be handled by an Adreno 305 GPU and it will have an FWVGA resolution display—480 x 854—with virtual buttons. It will run on Jelly Bean 4.1.2.

Sony recently revealed the price of its upcoming flagship device, the Xperia Z. The company's UK website states that the Xperia Z will cost £529 (approximately Rs 45,000) in the UK, but there is no information about its launch or how much it will cost in India.

Our grey market sources have hinted that the device may make it to Indian shores in the next couple of weeks, but there has been no word from Sony about the launch.

We expected the Xperia Z to be in this price bracket, considering it is IP-certified, water and dust-proof. It will be interesting to see how well the device performs in terms of sales against the HTC Butterfly, or even the relatively older iPhone 5, both of which are in the same price bracket.