The much anticipated Canadian release for Sony Xperia S finally happened on April 17th where the device was made available at Sony Stores and offered for $100 on a 3-year contract with Rogers or just $500 for no commitment. Let me make it clearer, Xperia S for Canada is available only from Sony Stores and the company previously claimed exclusivity for the device, but Sony has tied up with Rogers Canada that the device would be released for just $100 provided the customers would sign a 3-year agreement with the Canadian operator.
Sony has been doing extensive marketing campaigns to promote Xperia S worldwide and they seem to have successfully attained the popularity they were striving to achieve. However, the device has also been bombarded with so much criticisms because while it comes with really high specs it will be operating on an Android 2.3 Gingerbread instead of the much anticipated Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). We would love to think that the Japanese electronics company will be rolling out update soon but it seems Xperia S owners would have to wait for at least two months before hearing some good news about the ICS update.
Sony has been so busy recently as it started rolling out ICS update to 2011 Xperia series whichh would run for about 4 to 6 months. History would tell us that the company is taking update roll outs seriously and that they take one model after the other. Basically, we will start receiving some buzz about Sony Xperia S ICS update in June or July but we are hoping it would be earlier because the thought of having a very powerful 2012 model smartphone running on Gingerbread would turn any Android-loving tech-savvy people off.
As a refresher, Sony Xperia S sports a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 chipset clocked at 1.5 GHz frequency (clockspeed) and a 1 GB random access memory (RAM). Again, I would like to reiterate that this is Sony’s newest flagship and entry into the high-end market and it is as powerful as you can think. While it only has a dual-core processor, it is clocked at a high frequency and is more than enough to cater all your activities using this device. And considering Gingerbread is way lighter than the Ice Cream Sandwich, you can expect that Xperia S will be faster than you think it is. Well, I’m not saying it will slow down when updated to ICS but that’s one thing we’ll have to find out when the official Xperia S ICS ROM has been put into the device in a not so distant future.
Sony is optimistic Xperia S will be warmly welcomed in Canada. Besides, tying up with Canada’s largest telecommunications company would do the trick. People would love to try some really powerful devices like this, but they hate to pay a premium price straight up. The trending in the past five years is that Sony often get higher sales when the device is offered at a lower price with a contract so it is expected Rogers will have retain, regain and acquire more customers who want to lay their hands on the latest power Sony Xperia S.
