Sony coats Xperia P in 24-carat gold, keeps up tradition of so-so phones in luxury shells

Outside of custom projects, the cardinal rule for draping phones in exotic materials is that they must never, ever be truly high end devices: at best, they should involve mid-tier hardware that could be eclipsed by a garden-variety smartphone at a fraction of the price. Sony's maintaining that all too time-honored tradition by producing a gold-coated, 24-carat version of... the Xperia P. Yes, rather than spruce up a flagship like the James Bond-approved Xperia T, Sony has instead given the luxur...