Those of you who were hopeful of a 2012/2013 update to the Sony Ericsson Xperia pro or Xperia mini pro we have some bad news for you. Sony Mobile has confirmed that it currently has no plans to release a Sony Xperia mobile with a physical QWERTY keyboard. The news came from John Cooper, UK Product Manager for Sony Mobile, who was taking questions on Facebook earlier today.
Sony attributed the reason behind the decision to the fact that the market prefers large touch screens over keyboards. Here’s what was said in full: “The market seems to prefer large touch screens to keyboards at the moment so unfortunately we don’t have any current plans to release an Xperia with a keyboard.”
The news doesn’t surprise at all. There has been a lack of physical QWERTY Android devices from all manufacturers. We wouldn’t expect Sony to build devices that are likely to only appeal to a small minority. Despite this, there is still a vocal minority who would like a QWERTY Android device of some kind and we’re sure this news will disappoint some.