Readers with good memories may recall that back at the beginning of July we brought you news of the Sony Xperia SL smartphone, thought to be a refresh to the Sony Xperia S. It now seems those details were accurate as an official look of the Xperia SL has come to light just before we expected an announcement at IFA in Berlin on August 29. It shows a phone with many of the specs of the Xperia S but an improved processor and a new color option.

Many are expecting the Xperia SL to be the focus of a pre-IFA Sony press conference but it seems that someone at Sony may have been over eager and posted the smartphone’s product page slightly too early. The Xperia S has been a flagship phone for Sony so no doubt the SL will also find success, its major difference being a 1.7GHz Qualcomm S3 dual-core processor rather than a 1.5GHz version.

Other specs of the Xperia SL, according to the leaked info as reported by GSM Arena, are Adreno 220 graphics, 4.3-inch LCD HD display, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of non-expandable storage, 12-megapixel rear camera capable of 1080p video capture and a 1.3 megapixel front facing shooter. There’s also micro USB, microHDMI, WiFi and Bluetooth and the dimensions of the Xperia SL are 128mm x 64mm x10.6mm (5 x 2.5 x 0.4-inches) while it weighs in at 144g. The Xperia S came in white, black and grey but the new Xperia SL will also come in pink.

The Xperia SL should give you around 8.5 hours of talk time and standby time of 420 hours and it will run on Android 4.0 ICS. We don’t yet have a release date or pricing but it certainly won’t be long until the expected unveiling at the end of this month so we shall of course bring you all the official information as we hear it.

We want to know what you think about the Sony Xperia SL, which we have to say is a beautifully sleek device as far as looks go? Are you an attracted to the refreshed Xperia S or do you think it will have major competition from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 or Apple iPhone 5? Send your comments to us to let us know.