Sony announced the Xperia with a new type of touchscreen that doesn't require a full touch, NFC and Xperia SmartTags in three colors black, red and white. It is expected to be available in the second quarter of this year.
Along with the new no-touch hover navigation the Sony sola has a 3.7" BRAVIA Reality display, NFC, 1GHx dual-core processor, 5MP camera, Google Play, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, DLNA, 8GB storage onboard, 1320mAh batery, Android 2.3(Update to Android 4.0 in Summer 2012).
With an exclusive release on the Xperia sola, Sony's u floating touch user navigate the web by hovering their finger above the screen so it acts like a moving cursor, without touching the screen. Once a link is found it can be highlighted and tap that will load the page. Floating touch will evolve with more functions through development, later.
When Xperia sola touches a SmartTag, a pre-configured profile in the smartphone will launch. The two SmartTags included with Xperia sola can be personalized with up to 10 commands. Out of the box one is ready for the living room to turn on Wi-Fi and launch Google news and weather apps, and the other one for the bedroom, which turns on the alarm and switches to silent mode.
Xperia sola supports NFC pairing allowing owners to connect with other NFC smartphones, applications and services by tapping their smartphones together.
Xperia sola has a Reality Display powered by Mobile BRAVIA Engine, xLOUD™ and 3D surround sound audio technology delivering crisp and loud sound, and a 1GHz dual-core processor for super fast performance. Xperia sola also comes with fast capture to take the camera from sleep to snap in a little over a second with a single key press.