Back in November, Sony Ericsson confirmed that its 2011 range of smartphones will be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich treatment; with updates planned for Google’s latest version of Android.

And now, the soon-to-be-gone company has detailed and dated the planned updates. The bad news is that there's a bit of a wait.

The first smartphones to get the upgrade are the Xperia arc S, the Xperia neo V and the Xperia ray, with Android 4.0 landing in late March or early April.

Around a month later, late April to early May, Xperia arc, Xperia Play, Xperia neo, Xperia mini and mini pro, Xperia pro and Xperia active handset owners can expect the update along with Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman users.

With the memory of a million whining fandroids ringing in its ears from previous Android updates, Sony Ericsson is keen to stress that the process is more tricky than you might imagine.

"This will be a phased roll out over several weeks and all kits for a specific phone model will not get the upgrade at the same time," warned SE's Martina Johansson in a blog post.

"Once the coding is done we want to make sure the quality of the new software meets our, our partners and your expectations. [If] we feel the new software is ready...we also need to make sure it’s approved by our external partners."

When the update is good to go, 2011 Xperia smartphone owners will receive a notification instructing them to download the software. Alternatively, you have the option to download it via PC.

Check out some of our Xperia reviews: