New Zealand buyers can today celebrate the arrival of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active handset in the country. Telecom New Zealand have signed a deal with Sony Ericsson which sees the sporty Xperia launched on their network exclusively.

From a dust and waterproof casing to a scratch resistant screen, the Active is made for those with sports and activity in mind. Included on the handset are heart rate monitors, fitness and sports apps and built in GPS. The touchscreen even works with wet fingers, if thats a feature you would find useful!

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Active is due to be released in the UK at the end of the month and it shouldn’t be too long until the handset is available in North America as well. The Xperia Active has made it’s way on to the FCC site complete with photos of the handset. The documents include external photos of the handset, as well as internal pictures of the Xperia Active. You can also read the test reports from the FCC or check out the “My first hour” Xperia Active manual.

For those ‘actively’ waiting for news on the release of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Active handset, unfortunately that news is that the release date seemingly has been moved back until the end of September by Sony Ericsson.

The Active is the one of the newest members of the Xperia family of mobile phones and comes packed with specs similar to those of it’s bigger brother, the Xperia Arc. Android version 2.3.3 is installed on the Active until the expected release of 2.3.4 in November, which is also waterproof and dustproof.

Sony Ericsson have announced a further two handsets to be included in their 2011 range of Xperia smartphones. Both of the handsets fall into the “mid size” range of phones, making them smaller than the already released flagship handsets, the Xperia Arc and Xperia Play.

Xperia Ray