Sony only outed its newest trio of Xperia smartphones just over a month ago in Berlin, and AT&T has just announced that it’s already grooming the device for a U.S. launch.
Oh, and in case you care, the phone will also appear on-screen as James Bond’s phone of choice in Skyfall. Then again, what else is new — Daniel Craig’s version of the iconic secret agent has been using Sony phones for his two previous forays on-screen.
Here’s a quick recap of the T/TL in case you really don’t feel like clicking that link — Sony’s new flagship sports a 4.6-inch Reality display running at 720p, a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8260-A processor (the same as the one seen in HTC’s slim One S), and a fast-booting 13-megapixel camera.
In terms of connectivity, the TL will play nice with AT&T’s LTE network, and there’s an NFC chipset tucked in there as well to help facilitate one-touch file sharing (and potentially Isis-powered mobile payments?). The whole shebang runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich for the time being, and while Sony confirmed that a Jelly Bean update would be pushed “following launch,” there’s no telling how long it’ll take an update like that to pass through AT&T’s testing and certification process.
Honestly though, AT&T’s announcement isn’t exactly news if you’ve been paying close attention these past few weeks. In the days leading up to Sony’s Xperia unveiling at IFA, it was revealed that Sony Mobile had filed a trademark application for “Xperia TL” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Even more tell was the fact that the Xperia T was spotted on a U.K. retailer’s website rocking AT&T’s familiar logo (see below) just a few days after Sony’s official announcement. The real meat here — when the TL will launch and how much it’ll cost when it does — is notably absent in AT&T’s release.
