Sony Xperia go, Xperia acro S waterproof phones hit markets

Jumping on the increasingly popular trend of smartphones for active lifestyles, Sony has introduced two new durable and waterproof handsets.

For once, rugged doesn't equate with bad design. The two Android-powered handsets are svelte and streamlined but feature extra protection like scratch-resistant displays and wet finger tracking.

The Xperia go offers the highest level of dust and water resistance available on a smartphone (protected against dust and immersion in up to 1 m of water for 30 minutes) while the Xperia acro S comes with IP55 and IP57 Ratings for dust and water resistance (protection against dust-limited to ingress (no harmful deposits) and the effects of immersion up to 1 m for 30 minutes).

The party-friendly smartphones are not lacking in features either. The Xperia go comes with a 3.5" "Reality Display," a 5MP camera, a 1GHz dual-core processor, Sony's Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services and Android 2.3 (upgradable to Android 4.0).

The higher-spec'd Xperia acro S has a 4.3" 720p HD Reality Display, a 12MP camera with full 1080p HD video recording and 720p HD front camera, and a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor. The Xperia acro S is also PlayStation Certified and ships with Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

A number of waterproof medium- to high-end smartphones have been announced in the past year, which is good news for those of you who have a tendency to take your smartphone swimming with you. Among them are Softbank's radiation-detecting Pantone 5 107SH, Sharp's Aquos phone Serie ISW16SH, Kyocera's Hydro Android smartphone, and Panasonic's Eluga.

Xperia go (aka the Sony Xperia advance in the US) and Xperia acro S will be available globally from the third quarter 2012. Pricing has not been announced.