[LOCAL] Sony Ericsson outs two Xperia phones: Ray and Active!

Sony Ericsson again played the role of  busy bee as it launched two more goodies from the Xperia line, the Active and Ray. Hmm... their names sound interesting no? Well, the handsets, aside from being flavored by Android Gingerbread, come with one nifty feature that we bet you'll have a hard time finding in other handsets. What is it, you ask? We don't want to spoil the fun this early so just be patient for a bit and read on.

Sony Ericsson Xperia active

First off, we have the Xperia active, a handset that SE says fits those who live an active life hence, the name. It sports a dust-proof, scratch and water-resistant chassis along with a 3-inch touchscreen with Sony's Bravia Mobile engine, a 5-megapixel camera with HD video capability and full wireless connectivity. As for its innards, it boasts a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip and 512MB RAM.

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

If the Xperia active is of the rugged type, the ray is its more elegant sibling. It comes with a slim profile that's just 9.4mm thick and tips the scales at a light 100g. As for the eye-candy department, the ray has a 3.3-inch touchscreen with 480 x 854 pixels resolution and Bravia Mobile Engine and an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording. A 1GHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU along with 512MB of RAM powers this baby.

3D Sweep Panorama 

Now what is the dirty little secret of the couple? 3D Sweep Panorama. Both the active and the ray comes with this shooting mode which users can use to capture a scene in 3D by just panning the handset from left to right. Up to 100 images are captured with 3D Sweep Panorama coming from different angles and the camera then analyzes and combines them to form a full 3D picture. You can then view the resulting 3D panoramic image on a compatible 3D TV. Nice! Let us clarify though that both handsets are not 3D phones per se and you have to hook them up to an external display to enjoy this feature.

Pricing and availability

SE reps told us that the active is not yet available in the market and should be arriving before November. No word on its exact price but expect to shell out P14 - 15,000 for a unit. As for the ray, it's available from retailers now and goes for about P17,000. So, will you be adding them to your Christmas shopping cart?