Sony launched the Xperia ZL along with the Xperia Z at the International CES in January 2013. Now reports suggest that the red version of the Xperia ZL will head to the U.S. in March or April.

"Well the red Sony Xperia ZL is indeed real and was spotted at the launch event for the new Xperia handsets in South East Asia. We were told that this is a prototype only and currently Sony Mobile has no plans to release this globally," reported Xperia Blog in January 2013.

The popularity of the Xperia Z has pushed the Xperia ZL to the background, but the smartphone boasts impressive features that enable it to compete with other top-end smartphones available in the market. However, unlike the Xperia Z, the Xperia ZL is not water or dust resistant, but has an IR blaster.

The Xperia ZL sports a 5-inch full HD Reality Display with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution, Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2, and has a pixel density of 443ppi. The display is made of shatter-proof sheet on scratch-resistant glass. The smartphone features a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with Adreno 320GPU.

Moreover, the Xperia ZL has 16GB of on-board storage, 2GB of RAM, a 13.1-megapixel primary camera, 2.2-megapixel secondary camera, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, upgradable to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

The unusual placement of the front-facing camera at the bottom right of the Xperia ZL makes the handset somewhat strange; however, many users may prefer the placement of the camera.

Sony has not confirmed an exact release date or pricing of the Xperia ZL but the Sony Store is showing a status of "Coming Soon" for all the three colors: black, white and red versions of the smartphone.

We will have to wait and see if the red variant of the Xperia ZL will be priced similarly to the black and white variants and if this version is made exclusive to certain carriers.