Budget Sony Xperia E2 getting LTE and clipping coupons next year?

Sony will release a successor to the Xperia E appropriately dubbed the Xperia E2 in 2014, according to a recent report.

The Japanese site EMSOne said the Xperia E2 will feature LTE compatibility, unlike its predecessor, which launched in March 2013 with 3G only.

Other than that we know literally nothing about the possibility of an Xperia E2, including any hints about its specs.

But the original Xperia E featured a 3.5-inch 320 x 480 display, a 1GHz Cortex A5 processor, 4GB of storage, and 512MB of memory - so hopefully the E2 comes with a specs upgrade as well.

Rise of the budget phones

Even with a specs upgrade, though, the E2 will surely retain its budget price tag. Sony's got enough going on on the high end with the flagship Xperia Z (and possibly the Xperia Z2).

There's also hope that phones like the Xperia E2 will come with Android 4.4: KitKat, since the latest version of Android isn't dependent on powerful hardware.

Does that mean the age of budget phones is upon us? Maybe not for that reason, but it's true that budget phones are thriving alongside their high-end, flagship counterparts.

And one can hope that we'll start seeing the new Android version on budget and low-end devices like the Xperia E line out of the box as well as the high-end devices that usually get all the OS love.

• Speaking of budget phones, Samsung showed off its first Tizen phone in November - and don't forget that Sony has promised a Firefox OS handset in 2014 too.