Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S announced, same old same old

What’s with the “S” on Android devices these days? When the HTC Desire was upgraded it became HTC Desire S. Now Sony Ericsson announces the Xperia Arc S over at the IFA 2011 in Berlin which is just an upgraded version of their Xperia Arc. I wonder what they will call the Arc S when it becomes upgraded. Arc SII?

Anyway, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S looks very similar to the Xperia Arc. In fact there’s no noticeable difference physically aside from having more colors to choose from. It has the same 4.2-inch screen with same Reality Display resolution (854 x 480), the tiny nubs on its side including the hard-to-click camera button near the edge. Who cares? The Xperia Arc still remains to be one of the most stylish Android phone ever made so why change it?

What’s different is in the inside. The Xperia Arc S now has a 1.4GHz processor so I’m guessing they will be releasing a dual-core processor phone under a different name. It still has an 8 megapixel camera with Exmor R lens but it can now do sweep panorama shots like current Cyber-shots and can even convert it from 2D into 3D. Sadly, Sony Ericsson didn’t bother to upgrade the 320MB internal memory.

Pretty much minor upgrades but you can now choose from a variety of colors: Pure White, Midnight Blue, Misty Silver, Gloss Black, and Sakura Pink. As typical of such worldwide announcements, no local pricing and availability yet but it will be released in the US on Q4 2011.