When new Android phones start to catch the eye of bloggers and tech-geeks, at least two major questions come to mind: 'What are the hardware specs?' and 'What version of Android will it be running?'  The hope is usually that the answer to the latter question will be any variant of 2.x, and if not, the follow-up tends to be 'When will we get the update?'

When Sony Ericsson launched their X10 series of phones (Xperia X10, X10 mini, X10 mini pro) with Android 1.6, the story was no different, especially since the time between the initial announcement of the device and its widespread release was about six months.  Today, SE has announced that the Xperia family of devices will receive an update to Android 2.1 sometime in Q4 of this year.  Why the wait?  Likely because SE needs to finish up development and enhancements of its UXP overlay to "generic Android" 2.1 (at least this is my guess).  On the bright side of things, accordingto a SE Blog, there will be a small software update ready within the next few weeks "aiming to enhance the usability and performance of Xperia™ X10."

Here is some of what you can expect to see in the full update sometime in Q4:

• Upgrade to Android OS version 2.1
• HD video recording as per the same execution as Sony Ericsson Vivaz
• Wireless home connectivity via DLNA
• Improvements to signature applications Timescape™ and Mediascape to make them even smarter and richer

With Froyo (2.2) purportedly around the corner, I wonder if they'll end up getting 2.2 instead of 2.1?  And if not, what does this mean for fragmentation?  Comments are welcome below!

Via Engadget, Sony Ericsson