Sony Ericsson has been making such a decent fist of its Xperia-branded foray into the world of Android that we'd almost forgotten the fact that the firm has said all along it will be getting into Windows Phone 7 too at some point.
Until now the only timeframe we've been given to go on was “2011 at some point”, but now – thanks to what seems to be a legit image of a WP7-powered Sony Ericsson handset doing the rounds – we're thinking that point could be fast approaching.
The image in question has been surfaced by WMPowerUser, and shows the familiar WinPho tiles on the screen of a QWERTY slider device that looks not dissimilar to the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.
The Windows Phone-based site isn't willing to declare the image legit beyond a shadow of a doubt, and neither are we, but it's certainly a possibility, and after all would simply be a matter of Sony Ericsson keeping its word.
As noted to WMPowerUser, the hardware itself looks impressively slim for a WinPho slider – though of course it could be a prototype handset, not a final design, and there's certainly a gap in the calendar for some new Windows Phone hardware.
Even if it is legit, though, there's no way of knowing how close to a finished product this actually is, so we'll file this one away simply as a talking point for now, rather than a confirmed leak.
What do you think – does Sony Ericsson have anything to gain from outing a WinPho smartphone? Give us your thoughts in the comments.
