Japanese operator NTT docomo has announced that Sony's latest handsets, the Xperia 1 II (Mark 2) and Xperia 10 II (Mark 2) will both land on the network. The interesting news from a western perspective is that docomo has confirmed that the Xperia 1 II flagship will be launching in Japan in late April – this is earlier than expected, and would be great news if it had a similar launch window in Europe and North America.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other Cabinet Ministers mourned the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan in March, 2011.

Abe and 20 others, including Disaster Management Minister Ryota Takeda and Reconstruction Minister Kazunori Tanaka, attended the event at the prime minister's office on Wednesday.

We have the first hands-on photos of Sony's new super mid-ranger, the Xperia 10 II (Mark 2). This follows on from our earlier post showing the first hands-on pics of the Xperia 1 II (Mark 2). You'll see a couple of photos below showing the size difference between the 6.0-inch Xperia 10 II and 6.5-inch Xperia 1 II.

Sony's announcement of the Xperia 1 II (Mark 2) received a lot of buzz earlier in the week, however the one disappointment is the likely 3-4 month wait before Sony's latest flagship will be available. A consequence of this is the lack of any hands-on previews from the media to sustain the buzz. We can understand Sony's decision on this as there's no point overplaying your hand right now, and have nothing to keep the interest going once we get closer to launch. It does make us wonder why it was necessary to announce the phone right now in this case, but Sony have a track record here…

Sony has upped their game when it comes to their mid-range smartphone offering, as its newly announced Xperia 10 II (Mark 2) sports both an OLED display and is IP65/68 water resistant for the first time. It's nice to see some of these previous flagship features trickle down into the ‘super' mid-range.

Sony has unveiled its 2020 smartphone flagship in the form of the Xperia 1 II (Mark 2). As the name suggests, Sony has taken what made the Xperia 1 great and made some very worthwhile improvements.