Sony Ericsson Kumquat ST25i spotted

Mimics design of Xperia S.

We were quite taken with the Sony Xperia S and Xperia Ion at CES this month – so much so that we gave the Sony Xperia S a great big CES Hot Stuff Award.

But eyes are already firmly fixed on the line-up for Mobile World Congress in February, so what's Sony (Ericsson) got up its sleeve to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC Edge?

Well, unless the Xperia Blog's smartphone sleuths are mistaken, there's a whole gang of Sony Ericsson branded handsets headed our way – you'll know them by their transparent notification bar. And the ST25i, codename Kumquat or Xperia U, seems to fit at the lower end of the line-up. The Kumquat is a slightly less impressive beast than the Sony Nyphon/ Nypon that we've seen so much of.

The ST25i looks set for a 3.5in 480 x 854 display with Android Gingerbread 2.3 and a 1GHz dual-core processor under all that aluminium. There's also the 'Iconic Identity' design as seen on the Xperia S to look forward to – trust us, the build is better than the name. And the Kumquat is also rumoured to sport a 5MP camera, placing it firmly in the budget smartphone arena, alongside the HTC Primo. We just hope they go with Xperia U – Kumquat might be a nutritious, brightly-coloured fruit but it's a ridiculous name for a handset.

This article originally appeared at Stuff.tv