Sony never used to make headlines for offering great value for money, but things have changed as the Sony Xperia U captured our attention thanks to its affordability.

The device, which can be had for around £110 on PAYG, is available for free from Carphone Warehouse on TalkMobile with a £10 per month two-year contract. That adds up to £130 more than the PAYG price.

The contract includes 250MB data, 200 minutes and 5000 texts and uses Vodafone as network.

As for the Xperia U, it runs on a dual-core ST-Ericsson Novathor U8500 system-on-chip clocked at 1GHz, 512MB of RAM, 8GB onboard storage (but no microSD card slot), a 3.5in display with 854 x 480 resolution infused with Reality Display and Sony’s Mobile BRAVIA engine.

Other features include a 5-megapixel camera with HD video capabilities, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, a microUSB port, Android 2.3 Gingerbread (with an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade coming soon) 3D Surround sound via xLoud plus access for 60-days to Music Unlimited, GPS and a front-facing camera.

You will be hard pressed to get a cheaper deal on a dual-core smartphone.

Source: Carphone Warehouse