Sony launched its Xperia Z and Xperia ZL at the 2013 International CES and showcased the black and white versions of the smartphones. However, leaked images have surfaced online and show the Xperia ZL donning the red avatar.

The Xperia ZL is almost identical to the flagship Xperia Z, but the former is not dust or water resistant.

"Xperia Z and Xperia ZL launches globally in Q1 2013. For Xperia Z, the available colours are black, purple, and white. For Xperia ZL, the available colours are black, white, and red," noted the official Sony press release.

However, the red avatar of the Xperia ZL was nowhere to be seen at the CES. And, before you get all excited, according to a recent report, the red flavor of the Xperia ZL may not be released globally.

"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.

The Xperia ZL sports a 5-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 and 441 ppi. A quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.5GHz powers the smartphone. The device is equipped with a 13-megapixel Fast Capture rear-facing snapper and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Xperia ZL includes 16GB of on-board storage which is expandable to a further 64GB using a microSD card. The handset also has 2GB of RAM. A 2370 mAh battery powers the Xperia ZL. The smartphone runs on Android 4.1.

The official Xperia ZL webpage indicates that the handset will be available in black and white. We will have to wait and see which select regions get the red variant of the smartphone.