Sony has now officially announced its newest Xperia smartphone, the Xperia SP. Built around a 4.6-inch 720p screen and Qualcomm's Snapdragon MSM8960Pro dual-core chipset, the Xperia SP aims to be the new king in the mid-range smartphone market.

As noted, the new Xperia SP features a 4.6-inch 720p Bravia Engine 2 LCD super-sensitive screen that has a "Glove Mode". The heart of its is Qualcomm's Snapdragon MSM8960Pro chipset with two Krait CPU cores clocked at 1.7GHz and paired up with Adreno 320 graphics. The rest of the specs include 8GB of internal storage expandable by microSD card slot, 8-megapixel Exmor RS sensor camera capable of 1080p video recording, front VGA camera for video calls, Bluetooth, GPS/GLONASS, WiFi, NFC, LTE and MHL microUSB port for connectivity and a 2370mAh battery capable of up to 734h of standy-by in UMTS mode (709h in LTE) and up to 18h53min of talk time.

The Xperia SP measures 130.6x67.1x9.98 mm, weighs 155g and features a plastic body combined with an aluminium frame. It also features an illuminated "notification" transparent strip at the bottom of the smartphone that lights up in different colors depending on the notification.

The new Xperia SP should be avialble in black, red and white colors and should appear in European and Asian markets in Q2. The new Xperia SP runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS. Unfortunately, Sony did not shed any details regarding the price but according to rumors and a couple of first listings in Europe, the SIM-free Xperia SP should end up at somewhere around €400.