Recently Sony ended its long association with its partner Ericsson after the two companies combined to bring out a number of worthy handsets over the years. Some of the handsets produced by the partnership include the Sony Xperia range, which has now been dated for the Android 4.0 update.

The company already announced that the 2011 Xperia range of handsets would eventually be getting the Android ICS upgrade, but as we get further into 2012 nothing has been released yet except the beta for the Xperia Play. Now though owners of the devices may be able to see some light at the end of the tunnel as according to the Android Police the first batch of Android ICS updates will begin rolling out during April.

It has to be remembered though this will only be for unlocked devices and specific carrier versions may take a little longer. First up in mid-April the Xperia Ray, Xperia Arc S, and Xperia Neo V will receive the new software and following that in either late May or early June will come the next batch of devices in line for the update.

These include the popular Xperia Play, Xperia Mini, Xperia Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, Xperia Neo, Xperia Active, and Sony Ericsson Live. What seems like a growing trend now the new operating system will arrive through the PC Companion and Bridge for Mac, and not as an over-the —air update. Also users will not receive any update notifications on their device, so there is a chance some users may miss the beginning of the rollout.

Sony does stress the fact that the availability of the software update “will vary by market and carrier requirements”, and the individual carriers will still have to ok the updates that could mean delays if any bugs are found.

Do you have one of the Sony handsets due for the upgrade?