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Sony Ericsson’s fans are keeping a very close ear on the ground as rumors and new updates about the recently leaked SE devices are starting to trickle down the news vine. According to the most recent announcement from Sony Ericsson, the previously leaked XPERIA Shakira handset is now going to be named as the XPERIA X8.

The move is considered by many as a natural direction for Sony Ericsson to take as the XPERIA X10 is a very high end Android smart phone. The device sports a high speed 1GHz CPU, a large 4 inch touch screen, an 8 mega pixel camera and of course, a very expensive price tag. The addition of the X8 to the XPERIA series gives users a slightly cheaper alternative to the X10 but without having to compromise so many features as they would with the X10 Mini handset.

It is believed that the X8 would have a capacitive touch screen that is about 3.3 inches diagonally, a 700-800MHz CPU and a 5 to 8 mega pixel camera. These specs would place the X8 right between the X10 and the X10 Mini, which fits the general assumption regarding the phone’s position as the missing link between the two X10 devices. In the meanwhile, fans are still waiting for an XPERIA X10 Pro which will add a QWERTY keyboard to the Android device (much like the X10 Mini Pro).

Speaking of physical QWERTY keyboards, it is reported that Sony Ericsson has two keyboard toting handsets coming out later this year. The first is an unmanned Android device that is reportedly going to have a 5.5 inch touch screen display and the other is the Sony Ericsson Julie –which is assumed to be a Windows Phone 7 handset. There have also been hints that the two devices may actually be one and the same.

The Sony Ericsson W150 TeaCake has been featured a lot recently after the device was revealed in a series of leaked images showing off the new handset from the Swedish Japanese joint venture.

According to initial rumors and speculative reports about the handset, the device is going to bring together the Sony Walkman technology with Google’s Android operating system (not that the Android does not have its own media/music playback capabilities, but having the Walkman technology certainly helps.

As exciting as that initial news may be, it seems that Android fans are in for a bit of a disappointment as new screens of the TeaCake’s user interface reveals little to no signs of the Android operating system. Not exactly the kind of news you would want to hear if the previous announcements have made you excite for the handset –but there it is. Of course, one cannot help but think, and hope that the Android mobile platform would still be used in the handset.

After all, the TeaCake is already featuring a phone form factor that closely resembles the X10 Mini and many even thought that the W150 is simply a Walkman-based version of the Mini itself. Should Sony Ericsson suddenly decide to come out and reveal the full details on this device and announce that it would indeed be running Google’s OS, they would be making plenty of fans happy.

While the TeaCake is currently off the ‘sure’ list of Android handsets, Sony Ericsson still has a couple of other devices that will be using the OS –the XPERIA Shakira is a definite shoo-in for the open source OS. The device is virtually the missing link between the XPERIA X10 and the X10 Mini. The X10 Mini Pro is due to be released soon –this handset is pretty much like the X10 Mini with a slide out QWERTY keyboard.

The new Mini Android smart phone from Sony Ericsson is now available through the Carphone Warehouse. It appears that there has been plenty of interest in this tiny mid range smart phone. Despite not having the high end hardware on the XPERIA X10 (which comes with a massive 4 inch capacitive touch screen, an 8 mega pixel camera and a Snapdragon 1GHz CPU), the X10 Mini is actually a pretty practical phone to have.

In fact, for those who are not too picky about their hardware –and are on a budget, the X10 Mini is the perfect solution to many smart phone needs.

In terms of hardware, the X10 Mini is a practical handset. The 2.5 inch capacitive touch screen is not as small as it may sound (compared to the significantly larger screen on the original device), and at close look, the display delivers a pretty solid Android experience for users. Even the phone’s interface comes with a stripped down version of the Timescape tool on the original XPERIA X10.

For now, the X10 Mini will be using the older Android 1.6 Donut operating system –just like the original handset. This probably means that when the larger handset gets an update, so might the mini version, and the original X10 is due to get an update on September (so anyone hoping for an update to the latest version might want to settle for another handset).

The device comes with a very small 128 MB of internal storage so users will certainly want to make use of the microSD card support –it will support up to 16GB cards and according to initial reports, a 2GB card will come packed with the handset.

A 5 mega pixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging and 30FPS VGA video recording will be replacing the larger 8MP camera on the original X10.