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The wait for Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 has been so long we’ve all grown ZZ Top beards and built an actual size Lego Death Star since it was announced. Its rivals have been busy too: Samsung’s i8510, Nokia’s N96 and Apple’s iPhone 3G have all stormed the smartphone palace and set up residency.
But, finally, Sony Ericsson’s first Windows Mobile phone is here. Early pictures of the premium handset suggested it might be a brick-sized Nokia Communicator, but those fears are immediately dispelled on first meeting: the X1 is compact, robust and pleasingly weighty in the hand. Think an armour-plated, double-decker C902.
Windows dresser
The presence of clunky old Windows Mobile might provoke groans in certain quarters but, like HTC, Sony Ericsson has dressed up the stale UI with its own ‘panels’ interface.
You get a selection of seven of these tiles (you can fit nine on the homescreen and more will be available to download), with each giving one touch access to features from Google services to your onboard media. There’s also Sony Ericsson’s own widget, and a very strange fish application.
Panel interface
Switching between these panels works quite well, although it’s not as efficient or slick as we’d like. The Windows OS has always been a tad disjointed and the panel system certainly helps, feeling more intuitive and enjoyable to use than HTC’s TouchFLO 3D.
Of course, the 3in, wide VGA quality touchscreen is central to the operation and, while the front end is finger friendly, you’ll be grabbing the stylus to work through Windows’ more intricate menus.
Like the i8510, the mechanised five-way navigation pad also doubles as an optical joystick and this certainly helps when scrolling through web pages.
Finger friendly
The X1’s spacious, thumb-friendly QWERTY keypad is by far the best for drafting and writing emails. But the Windows OS still offers a myriad of stylus driven techniques like handwriting recognition, virtual keyboards and even a transcriber.
Bypass Internet Explorer for the embedded Opera Mobile 9.5 and web browsing is fantastic over HSDPA and especially Wi-Fi. Full fat web pages are displayed in all their glory on the widescreen display and the X1’s touch dynamics suddenly blossom. Double taps for zooming in, iPhone-esque finger-dragging – it’s all there, and works smoothly.
Touch to focus
The 3.2megapixel camera, complete with autofocus, seems tame compared to the five and eight megapixellers doing the rounds, but it has some nice touches. The touch-focus is particularly neat, letting you focus on a specific subject by tap the area on the screen and picture quality is decent enough.
After stalling at QVGA level for ages now, it’s great to see Sony Ericsson finally step-up to VGA quality video at 30fps. You’ll definitely notice the smooth transition. Similarly, the integrated 3.5mm headphone socket is also a boon, considering the manufacturer’s reluctance to include a jack on its Walkman or Cyber-shot phones.
Review continues after the break...
With support for A-GPS and Google Maps onboard, the X1 is nicely geared for basic navigation and location-based services and the GPS fix from a cold start proved relatively speedy.
So can the X1 hold its own amongst the smartphone glitterati? With the exception of its middle of the road snapper, we would say just about. Although the Windows Mobile OS isn’t ideal and its panel interface still a little unconvincing, the XI is definitely the friendliest Windows Mobile phone we’ve handled.
Tech Specs
- Bluetooth
- Yes
- Dedicated MP3 player software
- Yes
- Dimensions
- 110.5x52.6x17mm
- FM radio
- Yes
- Main camera resolution
- 3.2 Megapixels
- Memory card slots
- Yes
- Memory card type
- Micro SD
- Operating system
- Windows Mobile Professional 6.1
- Quad band
- Yes
- Screen resolution
- 800x480 px
- Standby time
- 640 hours
- Storage
- 400MB internal memory
- Supported music formats
- MP3, AAC, AAC+
- Talktime
- 6 hours
- Weight
- 158g
- Wi-Fi
- Yes
- Xenon flash
- No
Comments
Brookser4
10 weeks ago
A few things readers need to remember. The slowness of the iPhones keypad at times was not reported by reviewers and was then fixed in a software upgrade. The same will be true for the X1's Panels. The X1's 3.2mp camera is better then the top-notch iPhone Smartphone and unlike the iPhone the X1 can record videos at 30 fps at a good resolution. Bootsführerschein
racking
13 weeks ago
Medium duty racking, medium duty racking has special structure,
racking and shelving
it’s easy to install and relocate. The structure is firm without bolts & nuts. The load capacity is good, which is widely used in supermarket, shopping mall, hospital…etc.
aks316
2 years ago
Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - 1 Of The Best Phones Ever..
Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: looks, solid build, 3.5mm jack, fully loaded like gps, wifi etc, good battery life, amazing display, panel interface is interesting, excellent qwerty keyboard, good camera, messaging is very easy, 32gb expandable, it is very good as a business phone as well as a multimedia phone... all in 1..
Cons: it will take you 2-3 days to understand the full features as winmob is a bit tricky, not as fast as the iphone, User interface is not very thumb-optimized, want more panels, want more accessories, want good applications and games from windows mobile & sony in 1 place..
Opinion:
The best thing i like about the phone is that it is good in both multimedia and business.. it is all in one phone.. it is not as fast as the iphone but it is not very slow it is acceptable.. you have to tweak the interface by downloading spb mobile shell or use sony ericsson panel or touchflow to make it thumb optimized.. the only real complain is i want more panels and accessories and finding good applications and games is a bit confusing but microsoft is launching windows marketplace so i hope that would make it easy to find applications and games in 1 place.. in the end i recommend this phone to everyone as it will solve all your purpose.. i find it better than the iphone which is also a very good phone..
nickmgray
2 years ago
I'm loving this phone! I wanted to do a little video review, but this does it a lot more justice than I ever could
http://htcsource.com/index.php/HTC/Sony-Ericsson-webcast-demo-of-XPERIA-X1.html
ColonelC81
2 years ago
I've had an X1 for around 2 months now. It is a very impressive phone but it relies far to heavily on the stlus.
I have had to install software from other HTC phones to make the menu finger friendly and to make a T9 Alphanumeric keypad available.
Now I have this software it is far better but it is still flawed. Allot of people are hoping the new updates will fix the niggles but there are allot (bluetooth problems, weak signal strength, freezing).
All in all I would say this phone is very impressive and great fun to use however it is not a phone i'd recommend to someone who doesn't want to ''play'' with 3rd party software and shareware. It has allot of problems that may be fixed with an update.
Jah
3 years ago
I cannot believe you have rated the HTC TyTn II above the X1! I have both and there is 'clear blue water' between these devices in terms of capability and performance. The X1 has a 800x480 screen compared to the TyTn's 240x320, the X1 has 256 MB of RAM (and a romoured additional 128 MB of video RAM)compared with the TyTn's 128 MB and the X1 uses a 528Mhz CPU asopposed to a 400 Mhz CPU of the TyTn. The AGPS of the X1 is also faster in my view. Finally, the X1 looks a lot more sexy and cool.
Selenalovato
3 years ago
I too feel that Xperia has got a great QWERTY keyboard with an excellent arch slider design. Infact it looks wonderful and stylish with decent camera and other features. The touchscreen is impressive too. I had it from here http://www.blueunplugged.com/p.aspx?p=135606
Jah
3 years ago
A few things readers need to remember. The slowness of the iPhones keypad at times was not reported by reviewers and was then fixed in a software upgrade. The same will be true for the X1's Panels. The X1's 3.2mp camera is better then the top-notch iPhone Smartphone and unlike the iPhone the X1 can record videos at 30 fps at a good resolution. Finally the X1 has a mature Bluetooth implementation so it supports stereo BT (unlike ...) and allows sharing of contacts with car BT hands-free systems. It is shame that so many reviews (not just here) focus on the 'wow' factor and not on the true real-life usability (e.g. with the X1 the battery can be replaced unlike other phones which need to sent back away for repair if there is a fault with the battery) . I am not a fan of WM6.1 but we should look at all the features of the X1 not just the Panels.