Xperia go (Xperia advance) announced; 3.5-inch dust and water resistant phone

Sony Mobile has announced a new smartphone in the form of the Xperia go (ST27i/ST27a). The phone is the successor to the Xperia active (ST17i) launched last year and will be both dust and water resistant. Taking this one step further the Xperia go is a refined IP67 class smartphone, the highest level of resistance found in any smartphone.

IP67 means it has an Ingress Protection (IP) rating of 67. The first number refers to protection against solid objects, whilst the second number refers to protection against liquids. In practice this means that the Xperia go has total protection against dust and is water resistant between 15cm and 1m. The phone comes with a pressure sensor to make use of those weather related or barometer apps. It will also have a 3.5-inch (320 x 480) scratch-resistant mineral glass display capable of wet finger tracking. 

In terms of specs, the Xperia go will use a 1GHz dual-core ST-Ericsson NovaThor chipset as seen in the Xperia P, Xperia U and Xperia sola. It will come with a 3.5-inch (320 x 480) display, 512MB RAM, 8GB of internal storage (4GB user accessible) and microSD memory card support. It will also come with a 1305mAh embedded battery promising 6hrs 30 mins of GSM talk time. Camera capabilities will be taken care of a 5MP sensor with 720p video recording.

The Xperia go will be available in three colours (black, white and yellow), with the latter getting our initial vote. The Xperia go will launch during the third quarter. It will also launch in the United States under the ‘Xperia advance’ name. We have no idea if any US carrier is planning on picking this handset up or whether it will be able sim-free. The phone will launch with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and update to Android ICS shortly thereafter.

Xperia go White Paper

Xperia go Specifications

1 GHz STE NovaThor™ U8500 Dual Core Processor.
ARM® Mali™ 400 GPU and NEON®CPU extensions.
Quad EDGE/GSM/GPRS 850, 900, 1800, 1900.
8 GB (up to 4 GB user-accessible memory) internal phone storage.
512 MB RAM.
Memory card slot: microSD™, up to 32 GB

3.5” Reality display with Mobile BRAVIA® engine.
xLOUD Experience

5 MP fast capture camera.
16x digital zoom.
LED photo flash.
720p HD video recording.

Accelerometer.
Proximity sensor.
Ambient light sensor.
Magnetometer.
Pressure sensor.

Bluetooth™.
aGPS.

IP67 certification.
DLNA Certified®.
Launched on Android™ 2.3 (Gingerbread), upgradeable to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

Via Sony Mobile Press, Sony Mobile Developer and Sony Mobile Product Blog.