Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo

BARCELONA, Spain--Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play wasn't the only new cell phone that the company released at Mobile World Congress. The slim and media-centric Xperia Neo and Xperia Pro also had their official coming out party in Spain.

The candy bar smartphones look very much like the handset that we caught a glimpse of last week. The only physical difference between the Neo and the Pro is that the former has a virtual keyboard while the latter adds a physical keyboard.

On both handsets, the 3.7-inch touch screen supports 16.7 million colors and a 854x480-pixel resolution. Three physical controls (Home, Back and Menu) sit below the display, and a volume rocker, power control, 3.5mm headset jack, a MicroSD card slot, and Micro-USB ports line the sides.

The Xperia Pro's keyboard is spacious and comfortable. The keys are slightly raised and the large space bar is located conveniently in the center of the bottom row.

Features on both phones include a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, a Sony Bravia graphics engine, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 320MB of internal memory, messaging and e-mail, an FM radio, a personal organizer, Sony Ericsson's Timescape interface, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB syncing and mass storage, a music player, an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and HD video recording, and a front-facing 2-megapixel camera.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro

The Neo comes in blue, red, and silver while the Pro is available in black, silver, and red. Both are quad-band GSM world phones with support for 3G networks in North America and abroad.

We'll follow up with a hands-on photo gallery shortly.