For those who like to try different custom ROMs, having a recovery in place is essential. The whole process has been made much easier for the 2011 Xperia line-up thanks to a ClockworkMod Recovery auto-installer that was created by xda-developer members pvyParts & nobodyAtall. The great thing about this solution is that CWM will install onto the system partition which means you can even use it with a locked bootloader.
pvyParts says that the app should work with the 2011 Xperia line-up but also explicitly lists supported phones as the Xperia arc, arc S, mini, mini pro, active, neo and PLAY (mixed reports of this working on the PLAY). To install this you’ll need root and you must be running the stock Android Gingerbread ROM. As always, when trying something like this, make sure you have a backup first. Click here for all of the details.