Sony Xperia acro S waterproof smartphone. Photo: AFP
The Xperia go offers the highest level of dust and water resistance available on a smartphone (protected against dust and immersion in up to 1 m of water for 30 minutes) while the Xperia acro S comes with IP55 and IP57 Ratings for dust and water resistance (protection against dust-limited to ingress (no harmful deposits) and the effects of immersion up to 1 m for 30 minutes).
The party-friendly smartphones are not lacking in features either. The Xperia go comes with a 3.5” “Reality Display,” a 5MP camera, a 1GHz dual-core processor, Sony’s Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services and Android 2.3 (upgradable to Android 4.0).
The higher-spec'd Xperia acro S has a 4.3” 720p HD Reality Display, a 12MP camera with full 1080p HD video recording and 720p HD front camera, and a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor. The Xperia acro S is also PlayStation Certified and ships with Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.
A number of waterproof medium- to high-end smartphones have been announced in the past year, which is good news for those of you who have a tendency to take your smartphone swimming with you. Among them are Softbank’s radiation-detecting Pantone 5 107SH, Sharp’s Aquos phone Serie ISW16SH, Kyocera’s Hydro Android smartphone, and Panasonic’s Eluga.
Xperia go (aka the Sony Xperia advance in the US) and Xperia acro S will be available globally from the third quarter 2012. Pricing has not been announced.