Sony has only been in existence as a phone manufacturer for a few days, but it's already managed to put together an impressive line up of handsets, with the cheapest of the range coming as the Sony Xperia U.
It's a phone that takes a lot of its design language from the Sony Xperia S, with the transparent element between the base of the phone and the buttons providing an interesting feature that's sure to get consumers playing with the devices in the likes of Phones4U in the future.
The handset is likely to feature in the £20-£25 a month price bracket when launched, and it's clear when you pick up the Xperia U that a few sacrifices have been made when it comes to the design.
The chassis lacks the aluminium feel of the larger Xperia P, or the sleekness of the Xperia S – it's plastic all the way, and the Xperia U isn't ashamed of it.
However if you were just glancing at the phone you'd struggle to know the difference between the three, with the bottom section looking almost identical with the transparent element,
There's another trick for this feature on the Sony Xperia U though, as the transparent part will light up and change colour depending on what's on the phone screen. This means blue photographs will go blue, and watching a football match will bring a green hue to your phone.
There's a front facing camera on offer here (although it's only VGA) to complement the 5MP offering on the rear, which also comes with a fancy LED flash. Well, not that fancy. It's just a flash. But it's pretty bright for a lower-cost phone.
Sony's Timescape Android overlay is once more on offer here, and it's getting better and better in our eyes. From the phone dialler to the well-spaced letter on the keyboard, the Sony Xperia U manages to impress us more than we thought a 3.5-inch screened phone would.
There's also a wealth of settings to mess around with too, meaning you can integrate Facebook to see user updates or check out their photos from your phone. It's been available on a number of Sony Ericsson phones for a while, but will help the new company sell itself on user experience.
And as it's probably likely pushing to be attractive to the youth market, customisation is essential – and we're seeing just that with the fact you can take off the bottom 'cap' for the phone and replace it with different colours. It's not the easiest action to perform, but helps bring a choice to your phone, and many people will appreciate that.
Early verdict
The Sony Xperia U is a phone that will compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 and Nokia Lumia 800 in the market, and it's certainly given us enough reason to think it's got a strong chance of succeeding.
We're still fans of the Sony Xperia S' power, but when you consider we're looking at a budget-friendly handset with a dual core 1GHz processor, we're very impressed with the operation and slick nature of the Xperia U.
We're very excited to be getting our hands on the phone soon for a full and in-depth test, so stick around for our full Sony Xperia U review in the near future.