Sony today has announced the new Xperia sola into its Android line. This was formerly known as the MT27i Pepper which we saw a while back. While touch screens are normally interacted by actual tapping or touching of the screen, the new Xperia sola features “floating touch” that lets you interact by simply hovering your finger over the screen. This offers a new way of surfing the web especially when browsing through web links. You can accurately select the desired link by hovering and then tap to open.
The Xperia sola comes with a 3.7″ Reality Display (TFT LCD 854×480) with Mobile Bravia Engine. The device is powered by Sony’s very own NovaThor dual-core 1Ghz processor (similar to the one in the Xperia P and U) and 512MB of RAM. The Xperia sola also comes with 8GB of internal storage and microSD card slot. Over at the back, there’s a 5MP camera with Fast Capture and 720p HD videos. NFC support comes as standard and according to the release, the device ships with two NFC SmartTags in the box.
In terms of dimensions, it is 9.9mm thick and weighs 107 grams. Compared to the current crop of Xperia NXT Series, the Xperia sola goes right in between the Xperia P and Xperia U in terms of screen size.
At time of announcement, it runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, Sony plans to release Android 4.0 upgrade for the device sometime in June. The Xperia S will go on sale sometime in Q2, 2012 with a choice of 3 colours – Black, White & Red.
In terms of pricing, the Xperia sola is expected to retail for EU329 in Europe, that’s about RM1,300 at today’s exchange rates but we expect the device to sell for less when it comes to Malaysia.
For more information, head over to the Sony Xperia sola page.
Check the video and photos after the jump.
