Sony Xperia U hits pre-order from £16 a month

Not content with offering customers the chance to prematurely bag the HTC One V, UK retailer Into Mobile Phones has also began taking pre-orders for the Sony Xperia U.

The Xperia U is Sony’s cheapest phone yet, but that’s not to say the company have skimped when it comes to the phone’s specs. Powered by a nippy 1GHz dual-core processor, the handset features a decent 3.5-inch Reality Display dressed in Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Unlike most affordable smartphones there’s also an impressive 5 megapixel rear-facing snapper with HD video, HDMI tech and 4GB included storage.

Most interestingly though, the phone’s fancy transparent bar will change colour to match what you’re viewing on the screen, and the Xperia U comes with interchangeable colourful caps (right).

Over at Into Mobile Phones, you can pre-order the phone on deals with O2, T-Mobile and Three. The cheapest contract is 24 month £16.17 O2 tariff, which will equip the pint-sized Xperia phone with 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of monthly data.