Sony Anju gets Major Specs Confirmed. It's not an Android 2.3 Gingerbread pre-loaded device anymore!

The upcoming Sony Ericsson phone we were so excited about, Sony Anju, has just been given a detailed ‘first look’ at the Mobile-Review. While it really got us excited on the first sight, we won’t hide the fact that we’re a bit disappointed too, going by the latest knowings about the phone.

Let’s take the bad stuff first.

Anju was rumored to be running Android 2.3 Gingerbread from the day one, but the latest revelations point out that it will indeed be launched in early 2011 with just Android 2.2 Froyo, which is a bit disturbing to us who were hoping a revival of Sony’s android phones line up in a big way, beginning with Anju. We expect a handful of devices running Gingerbread already in the market by the time Sony launches Anju (say hello to Nexus S and Galaxy 2), so once again, Sony would have to rely on its update workshop to bring the latest available android OS to its flagship phone users. Going by the X10 experience, we don’t find anything cool here!

That apart, the Anju, also called X12, won’t be featuring a deal breaker display — not even AMOLED, let alone the Super AMOLED display Samsung used in its flagship devices and will also be coloring Nexus S and galaxy 2 — but we do hope that the Anju will shine nice with Sony’s own Super LCD display, which HTC is also using heavily for its android phones.

While the above two features let us down a little bit, there is still very much left of Anju that needs to be cheered about. It’s yet another 4.3 inch screen android device with a 12 MP camera capable of recording 720p video, and is powered by the 800 Mhz Qualcomm MSM 7230 processor (the one you find in HTC G2 / Desire Z). The LCD screen is able to give a resolution of 854 x 480, a tad higher than Galaxy S’ 800 x 480. We know we said it’s slimmer than the currently slimmest android phones, the Droid X and the Galaxy S, both 9.9 mm thick, but we don’t have any confirmation on that as of now. Though, we’re pretty sure now that it’s slimmer than X10.

If you’re expecting Sony Anju to be another dual-core processor powered upcoming android phone like LG Star or Galaxy 2, we know you’re not liking it anymore but hey, Qualcomm’s 800 Mhz MSM 7230 processor is pretty power packed too, and was recently seen overclocked to whopping 1.9 ghz on HTC G2!

And as if the above two let downs in display and pre-loaded android OS version weren’t enough, the build quality of the phone also wasn’t at par with that of X10, leaving a cheap feel to the reviewer — against the goodwill Sony enjoys in the build quality and overall user experience.

The test unit of the Anju was running aging android 2.1 (still!) which further explains that Sony still lags behind in keeping itself updated with latest android OS versions, and that even a flagship device tests had to do with not-the-latest version. Any X10 users hoping of android 2.2 Froyo from Sony, don’t hold your breath!

Another upcoming android biggie from Sony, the Sony Zeus, known to bring the playstation gaming to Google’s mobile OS was expected to ship with android 2.2, which now makes sense since Sony anyway won’t have Gingerbread ready by its launch date in early 2011, as far as we can guess.

So, the revisited Sony Anju sounds very much like the Motorola Droid X, except a 12 MP camera in place of X’s 8 MP. Boy, we really don’t like the fact that it won’t ship with Androdi 2.3, what’s the matter Sony?