We might as well admit that the 2013 Mobile World Congress will mainly serve as a preview for midrange devices. With HTC and Samsung passing on major MWC reveals, it stands to reason that the majority of handsets debuting at the yearly trade show will be upper-midrange at best.

Photo credit: Xperia Blog

As it turned out, Huawei’s Ascend P2 wasn’t going to be a 1080p handset after all, but rather a quad-core powered 4.7-incher with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. Over on Sony’s end, the Japanese company already unveiled the Xperia Z and ZL at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, and it looks like its MWC 2013 offering will be more of a midrange device.

According to a leak shared on the Xperia Blog website, Sony will be unveiling the Xperia SP at MWC 2013, a 4.6-inch device with 720p resolution and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. At the very same time last year, such a device would have been a world-beater.

Right now, it’s merely midrange, with other specs including an 8-megapixel rear camera and some version of Android, possibly Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The handset may also be thicker and heavier than the Xperia Z. Dimensions and weight are 130.6 x 67.1 x 9.98 mm and 155 grams respectively.

Some sites have scoffed at Sony’s strategy to release a seemingly outdated smartphone at this point, but we do hope the Xperia SP would come with an affordable enough price point when Sony reveals more details. Those details should emerge at MWC 2013, which kicks off on Monday the 25th.