Sony MT27i Pepper pic and specs leak

We thought we'd see it at Mobile World Congress, but it seems Sony was holding this one back for later. It's called the Sony Xperia Pepper, with its product code MT27i. So, Xperia Pepper then.

We heard mention of the Pepper at the end of January, but now the official picture has leaked, and we've got a load of specs to go with it.

The specs haven't really leaked as such, but cross-referencing the benchmark databases we can see it has a 1GHz processor, Pocketnow reports. The screen is 3.7-inches with a resolution of 480x854-pixels, and on the back is a 5-megapixel camera. Sony's Smart Tags are pictured alongside the handset, so expect it to have NFC tech for transferring information by touching the phone on the tags. Much like the Sony Xperia S, in fact. And it runs Android too.

That's it in terms of specs for now. It's the follow-up to the Xperia Neo V, which was itself the follow-up to the Xperia Neo. But like the V, it sports only a 5-megapixel camera, which pales in comparison to the original Neo's 8 megapixels. It was speculated that the V was only 5 megapixels due to a shortage of 8-megapixel sensors following the Japanese earthquake last year, but we've seen plenty of 8-megapixel mobiles since then. You'd think other phone manufacturers would be panicking in the face of Nokia's ridiculous megapixel effort, and perhaps be trying to up their game.

It looks a lot more attractive than the Xperia Neo V though, with that unsightly rounded bottom given the push in favour of a more sensible rectangular design. It looks more similar to the Xperia U, minus the flashy light-up strip at the bottom.

What do you think of the Sony Xperia Pepper? Does Sony have what it takes to reverse last year's disastrous fortunes, now it's jettisoned Ericsson? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.