Leakage
Russian mobile phone blogger Eldar Murtazin, who has established a name for himself by getting hold of prototypes of handsets long before the manufacturer is ready to talk about them, appears to has done it again, although the review itself seems to have been written by a colleague.
This time the victim is Sony Ericsson, and the handset in question is the heir apparent to the Xperia X10. These go up to X12, and are otherwise known as Anzu. If this leak is accurate, the X12 will be an evolution rather than a revolution, with SE catching up with the rest of the OEMs by shipping it with Android version 2.2.
We can confirm that there's nothing official SE channels had to share with us, but the overriding priority for SE must be to, at the very least, not lag conspicuously behind the pack in terms of Android versions. HTC has has some handsets on Froyo since August, while the Xperia X10 has only just managed to get to 2.1.
Back to the device itself - ominously the supposed prototype on show was still on Android 2.1, and running the vanilla Android UI. It packs the Qualcomm MSM 7230 SoC. This may seem like a downgrade on the original Snapdragon featured in the X10, clocking 200MHz slower at 800MHz, but it features improved Adreno 205 graphics and is a newer design.
It has a 4.3 inch screen with a resolution of 480x854. It seems likely that photography and video will be a big feature, with a 12MP camera designed to rival the best Nokia has to offer. Apart from that, the reviewer doesn't think there will be much to distinguish the X12 from the best SE's competitors will have to offer when it launches - presumably at MWC 2011.