Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo leaked or faked online

We've been looking out for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo since the company trademarked the name alongside the Xperia Arc, Xperia Neo and Xperia Play. If these new spy shots are to be believed, it could be the first Xperia handset with a dual-core processor.

We've bemoaned the low quality of sneaky pics in the past and these two, spotted by Phone Arena and Xperia Blog on various Chinese sites, aren't much better. It's hard to tell if they're a genuine picture or an elaborate fake, but two different sources would seem to corroborate it.

You have to wonder why the weather app on the left is displaying a date -- Tuesday 14 July -- that doesn't occur this year. Has the Photoshop faker picked a screenshot from 2009, or simply messed up the illusion? There's something about the edging that doesn't look quite right either.

A dual-core Xperia would certainly be a welcome addition to Sony Ericsson's range, and given the trend for sticking ever more powerful processors into smart phones, you don't have to be a genius to predict it'll happen soon, spy shot or no spy shot.

A couple of photos don't give us much to go on, but the handset has the look of the Arc about it -- or possibly the Neo. We'd be pretty happy if the Duo picked up the features of either of those phones, smashers that they are.

We were particularly impressed with the thin, beautiful Arc, featuring a whopping 4.2-inch touchscreen, 8.1-megapixel camera and Android Gingerbread.

We just hope some of the problems on previous handsets -- a slightly cheap feel to the case and poor battery life, to name but two -- are ironed out on new models.

The Arc packed in a 1GHz single-core processor, but a dual-core version will suck out the phone's juice even more quickly. We're also hoping there won't be too many add-ons to clog up the Android experience and slow down updates. 

Image credits: Phone Arena, Xperia Blog