Good news for Sony smartphone owners. The Japanese firm confirmed in a blog post dated Dec 17 that specific Xperia phone models will soon chew in the JellyBean update in the form of a phased deployment that will start on February 2013.

It will be an Android 4.1 rollout, Sony said, indicating that Xperia smartphone owners will have to further wait for the latest JellyBean flavour, which Google already kicked up to the 4.2 level.

First to get the 4.1 patch are the Xperia T, Xperia TX and Xperia V, which based on the blog post Sony intends to dress up with the JellyBean between the months of February and March.

This move is part of Sony's progressive update plans for its Xperia smartphone lines currently powered by Android 4.0, more popularly known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

Before the end of Q1 2013, this JellyBean update will reach the following handsets: Xperia P, Xperia J and Xperia Go. Come April of the same year, Xperia S, Xperia SL, Xperia Ion and Xperia Acro S will get the same Android flavouring.

However, some bits of bad news as a number of Xperia devices will have to skip out on the upgrade, Sony said, which experts said is a decision largely motivated by outdated hardware specs that could possibly encounter issues with JellyBean.

"The decision has been taken not to upgrade Xperia U, Xperia Miro, Xperia Tipo, and Xperia Sola beyond Android 4.0," the Sony blog said, indicating that these entry-level smartphones will have to make do with ICS.

The company noted that actual "availability and rollout timing will vary by market and customer variants ... but we look forward to bringing you more information on this in the New Year."

It is expected that the unique smartphone experience on Xperia will be further enhanced once the JellyBean environment has fully replaced the ICS in most of the new Sony mobile phones, the blog post said.

"We're particularly excited about the Sony Xperia Jelly Bean features and functionality," Sony said.