Sony's Xperia SX, which was announced last week for release in Japan, is in many ways the most likable handset we've seen from the company's mobile reboot. It's a tiny phone with a 3.7-inch 960 x 540 display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, LTE support via Docomo's Xi network, and an array of features from 1seg TV to Osaifu Keitai NFC. Sony has done a pretty amazing job fitting everything into such a diminutive frame (the phone is 9.4mm thick and weighs just 95g), but the design remains as sleek and minimal as the Xperia S.

As with every other smartphone announced today as part of Docomo's summer lineup, the SX runs Android 4.0 and is all the better for it. While it has been skinned by Sony and Docomo, of course, it's pretty tastefully done and doesn't seem to slow the phone down much, if at all. Unlike the Xperia S, the SX has onscreen buttons, but otherwise the software effort bodes well for the Ice Cream Sandwich update coming to its bigger brother in the next few weeks. There's no word yet on whether the SX will make it beyond the shores of Japan in future, but we certainly hope so — it's the most impressive device yet to duck out of the Android screen size arms race.