Sony Xperia S now up for pre-order

Sony’s Xperia S Android smartphone, one of the highlights from their recent CES 2012 offerings, is now up for pre-order.

Landing in the UK on March 5th, online gadget retailer Clove.co.uk are shifting the handset SIM-free for £467.99. It is available to pre-order from their store now. Phones4U have also revealed they too will be selling the phone, with an exclusive white model set to hit their shelves only.

So what does a penny-shy of £468 get you? Here it bags you a 4.3 inch 720p screen using the mobile Bravia engine (which cribs some crisp image processing tech from Sony’s own HDTV range), 32GB of built-in storage, a 12MP camera and a dual-core 1.5GHz processor.

It’s a shame then that Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich build of Android is absent from proceedings, though Sony have assured would-be buyers that an over-the-air update bringing the souped-up OS is on the way. For now, Xperia S owners will have to make do with Android 2.3 Gingerbread.