It was no secret Sony Ericsson was working on an Android device, the Xperia Rachael. No company actually can relinquish the need to follow this development. Although I bet they would rather use Mac OS, Android is the only free alternative that actually can keep up in competition. So now the first pictures leaked, and SE seems to produce the next big thing. But will it be too late?

The question is not if it is going to be “the phone we have been waiting for“. The question is rather: When it comes to the market, will it still be that good? Just think of the time it took SE to get the Xperia X1 to the market, as well as the good old P1 I am using.

I have to state this clearly: As much as I love their phones, the attitute of announcing something and than shipping it half a year or even a year later really annoys me. And its not only me feeling bad about it: The competitors can catch up easily on the development. It seems that it takes Samsung just a few weeks to produce something similar at a lower price. They may have developed theses products anyway, but somehow they are usually announced after the matching SE product and come to the market before them.

So, it may have a 8.1 MP camera, it may be slim and good looking, but I bet that Samsung is going to introduce something similar before them. think about it: It has not even been officially announced. So even if they would announced it tomorrow, it will take them at least half a year to produce it.

I know what the SE officials will say: “We are waiting for Android 2.0″. But did you know that thing is upgradeable?