Big news in the Windows Phone 7 camp, the minimum required hardware specs got bumped up a little, no dual core processor, but still good enough.

All Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market right now, are all running on Qualcomm's MSM8x50 Snapdragon chips, but that will soon change as Microsoft bumped up the requirements to Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7X30 and MSM8x55 chips. Not only that, but now all phones are required to have a Gyro so expect some interesting times ahead for Windows Phone 7 as the Mango update is being cooked up.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is one of the most wanted Android handsets coming out this year, so it is surprising to find out that it won't hit the U.S. on day one.

The Xperia Play will be launching in 11 countries, but for some odd reason, the United States is not listed among the 11 on the list. We are not sure if it has anything to do with U.S. carriers, that could be the case, but until we find out something concrete, we just have to stick to speculating for the time being.

Here is some good news for potential Sony Ericsson Xperia Android phone owners who love to meddle with their device.

Sony Ericsson will allow you to unlock the boot-loader on the phone, yes, they are actually opening the thing up which is rather shocking. Only a selected few of the Sony Ericsson Xperia line of phones will be subjected, and these phones are required to be unlocked and not tied to a carrier. We find this to be very exciting, Android promise was openness so it was a huge bummer when we realize how many Android manufactures were locking down the boot-loader.

One of the top successful phones from Sony Ericsson is the X10 Min Pro, so we were pumped to see images of its successor hitting the interwebs.

The device is called the SK17i which is codenamed Mango, as you can tell, it sports a full qwerty keyboard, and a camera with flash. We understand that Android 2.3, Gingerbread, is the OS at the heart of this thing, no other specifications were forthcoming.

More about Sony Ericsson and their Android devices. Come April 19th, 2011, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo will be launched in Europe, the rest of the world will just have to wait.

The Xperia Neo resembles the Xperia Arc, difference according to folks who got to handle the device, it is not as powerful and feels cheap due to the plastic outer casing. The price at launch will be around £299, it runs Gingerbread and has a 8MP camera so it should be a worthwhile device for folks who want Android on the cheap.

Google Android tablets with Honeycomb as the OS of choice has been all over the place this year, but Sony Ericsson were missing in action.

According to Bloomberg, Sony, not Sony Ericsson, will be launching a Honeycomb tablet in the U.S. by the end of summer 2011, no word if Sony Ericsson is on the verge of releasing a tablet for themselves this year, they might hold off from doing so to keep from competing with Sony with a similar tablet. This Sony tablet could possibly have support for the Sony Playstation Suite, would be really stupid of them to leave that out.

Here's a massive blow to the balls of many, Sony Ericsson plans on updating the Xperia X10 to Android 2.3, Gingerbread, say what?

Last time we checked, or heard, Sony Ericsson chose never to update the X10 to Android 2.2 because their custom user interface made it difficult, so what really changed so much in Android 2.3 that would allow them to make the upgrade? We are baffled also. We never expected this, we all about thought that Sony Ericsson would have alienated their user base and force them to buy a new phone, so this move by them is pretty awesome.

Sony Ericsson of late, has been taking notes from Sony when it comes to advertisements, because the new batch of Xperia Play ads are fantastic, they just make you want to pick one up right away.

Actress and Comedian, Kristen Schaal, is front and center in these ads, and she does a great job selling the Xperia Play. She is like the Kevin Butler for Sony Ericsson's gaming devices with the PlayStation brand, she is that good, and sometimes even better. We hope to see more from her in the near future, it would also be pretty neat if Sony Ericsson made her a long term partner like what Sony did with Kevin Butler, which isn't his real name, if you were wondering.

Want to play with that Sony Ericsson Xperia Play handset in April? Well, you'd have to live in Spain because as of now, Spain is the only announced country to be getting the handset.

The official date is April 1st, 2011, the retail price for the handset is not cheap, you will be asked to fork over €649 Euros, which is the equivalent of $900 USD. Fret not, however, price varies between countries, so it is likely the Xperia Play would be cheaper when it hits the U.S. later in the year, look out for a cool $800.

Sony Ericsson is all about gaining market share in North America these days, because they have 9 Android powered smartphones for North American release this year, and they are not hiding this fact.

We've already seen some of the awesome looking Android devices from Sony Ericsson, the only thing missing is a tablet, but with the smartphones they showed to the world this year, Sony Ericsson doesn't need tablets to compete as of this point. The first of the nine devices to be released is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, a phone dubbed as the PS Phone, since it will support classic PS titles via the Sony PS Suite.