Sony Xperia S priced: £468, coming first week of March

We knew the networks were eager to snap up the Xperia S. Everyone bar Virgin Mobile and Vodafone got on board with the first Sony-branded blower to hit these shores since Sony announced it was buying out Ericsson. But we didn't know exactly when the handset would arrive, nor how much it'd cost.

Well, those chaps over at Clove have priced up the handset for £467.99 including VAT, Pocketnow reports. So when will we be able to get our hands on it? It'll go on sale the week starting 5 March, according to the pre-order page. Start saving now.

The Xperia S impressed us no end in our hands-on. It packs in some truly awesome processing power, thanks to the dual-core 1.5GHz chip, a 4.3-inch 720x1,280-pixel resolution screen, a 12-megapixel camera, as well as 32GB of storage. It may not be as slim as handsets like the Motorola Razr or Samsung Galaxy S2, but it's no fatty either.

The main downer we can see is the fact it won't ship with Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android. Instead, you'll get Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is a disappointment. Sony will push out an update to ICS, but it's a pain to have to wait, especially seeing as the Galaxy Nexus already has ICS on board.

How much would you be willing to pay for the Xperia S? And is it enough to turn around Sony's fortunes in the mobile field? We're excited to see what it can do once it's bought out Ericsson, and the Xperia S looks like a good start, but let us know what you reckon on our Facebook page or below in the comments.