Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S announced

Sony-Ericsson has just announced an upgrade to the Xperia Arc, a similarly-looking but slightly faster Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S. It’s an odd upgrade which involved a 40% bump in the clock speed, instead of going dual-core.

Aside from that, I could not see any design or cosmetic difference or improvements between the original Arc and the Arc S. The suffix on the name probably stands for “speed”.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S specs:
4.2? LCD display @ 480×854 pixels
1.4 GHz processor single-core
Adreno 205 GPU
Qualcomm MSM8255T Snapdragon
Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine
512MB RAM
320MB internal storage
up to 32GB via microSD (8GB included)
HSDPA 7.2Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, WiFi hotspot
Bluetooth 2.1
8MP autofocus camera w/ LED flash
720p video recording @ 30fps
GPS w/ aGPS support
FM radio tuner
micro-HDMI port
1500 mAh Li-Po battery
Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread

What they actually did was add more colors — so instead of the white and black, they’ve added blue, silver and pink. Expected release date is as early as October this year. The suggested retail price might also follow the figures on the original Xperia Arc.

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Ericsson goes into OFW Remittance Service

The same company that brought us the Xperia Arc is also entering the financial services industry. The new company, Ericsson Money wants you to ditch Western Union but with a few conditions.

It’s a one-way street — you can only open an Ericsson Money account if you are in Germany, UK, Italy, France, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

I tried opening an account (just to test it) and maybe send money to my relatives in the province but I’m locked out. It’s pretty obvious that the service is targeted towards OFWs in those countries since they’ve partnered with Globe and Smart for the local exchange (you receive money transfers from Ericsson Money via Smart Money or Globe GCash).

And if the tutorials videos they put up on their website tells it all, the service isn’t much different from the likes of Western Union. In any case, this is more like a battle for who offers the cheapest remittance rates and who can remit the money the fastest.

The Central Bank of the Philippines estimates a total of $18.7 billion in OFW remittances for the year 2010. Getting just 1% market share is already huge (Php8 billion) and I’m thinking Ericsson knows that already.

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