Sony Xperia U out tomorrow in the UK on Three

The Sony Xperia U is out in the UK this week, with British network Three shouting that the dual-core smart phone is available to buy online now, and can be found in all high street mobile shops as of tomorrow.

Three's offering the 3.5-inch Xperia U for £180 on pay as you go, if a contract is more to your liking, check out the numerical network's range of Xperia U plans here.

If you're not keen on Three, Carphone Warehouse has a pre-order page that anticipates delivery this week, so you won't have long to wait. All major UK networks are set to offer the phone.

The Xperia U plays little brother to Sony's flagship Xperia S smart phone. With a 3.5-inch display, it's much smaller than the Xperia S, but for a phone that's on the affordable end of the Android scale, there's still a fair amount to get excited about here.

It has Sony's transparent strip along the bottom -- this one lights up different colours depending on what's happening on-screen, while swappable plastic caps let you dress up the bottom of the Xperia U in a range of tasteful hues.

There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, while my phone-addled colleague Natasha was impressed by the display when she went hands-on in February.

There are potential downsides here though, too. Next to more massive devices such as the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S3, the Xperia U risks being too small to make an impact. That said, the iPhone 4S is another 3.5-inch mobile, and I hear that's doing alright.

We'll have a full review written up just as soon as possible, so stay tuned folks. In the meantime let me know whether you fancy Sony's design in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.