Review: Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1
By Will Park on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 5:21 PM PST In Devices, HTC, Hottest Hardware, New Hardware, Photos, Reviews, Sony Ericsson, Windows Mobile
Design
First, we should start by saying that design is the most subjective aspect of any handset review. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 has more angled-cuts and buttons than just about any other Windows Mobile smartphone on market. Even the HTC Touch Diamond, which boasted an angular diamond-cut design, had sleeker lines than the XPERIA X1.
Clean design aside, the XPERIA X1 is crowded with buttons for just about everything. The shutter button, the Panel button, the call and end buttons, the directional pad, the volume buttons – they all break up the handset’s lines. The button-frenzy makes it harder to quickly and effortlessly hit the call or directional controls. Then there are the cut-outs that look more like design after-thoughts than functional elements. And, don’t even get us started on the exposed USB port…
On the flip-side, the inner-geek in us wants to like the button-addled, angle-cut design aesthetic. There’s something about buttons and data ports that makes us want to love the XPERIA X1’s design. But, when all’s said and done… we don’t.
Phone calls
What good is a mobile phone that doesn’t make phone calls? The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is as much a cellphone as it is a powerful portable computer.
Call quality? Well above par. Calls come through clearly and your voice is transmitted with fidelity. The speakerphone is nice and loud, without distorting at higher decibel levels. “Phone call experience” gets a solid thumbs-up.
To place a phone call, you simply hit the “Call” or “End” buttons on either side of the navigation controls. This brings up the Windows Mobile phone controls – dialer/keypad, contacts, call history. It takes some practice to hit the “Call” button without mashing the surrounding “Panel” and navigational control buttons, but you’ll get used to it in no time.
One thing to note – this is Windows Mobile we’re talking about here, so expect a bit of lag between your button-press and the initiation or termination of a phone call.
Email and Messaging…..
Nice review Will. That’s a sweet looking phone.
Thanks, John!
I do not understand why its not being picked up by a carrier here in America. I would get it in a heartbeat with carrier’s discount on it. Hope it will be picked up by T-Mobile.
Now that is what I call a review, good to see that people here in intomobile.com really take their time to take an indepth review like this especially Will Park.
Keep up the good work guys, =)
Cheers.
Great Review. =) I checked the Sony Style Store last Friday. Unfortunately, the X1a, the one with the US 3G bands, the AT&T ones at least didn’t hit the shelves in time for Black Friday.
Aside from the brilliant WVGA display, I think the Panel interface will be the X1’s edge over other phones. The guys at XDA Developers came up with a “Touch Flo 3D” Panel that replicates the home screen on the latest HTC devices, which I think is pretty cool. SPB also put out a free “Panel” version of their SPB mobile shell for the X1.
Those two interfaces are pretty “killer” in terms of Panel apps. I also heard there was a Facebook panel available. Don’t get me wrong, it seems really cool, but at the same time it kind of steams me up because Facebook was kind enough to grace the iPhone, Blackberry and now the Xperia, but seems to have left the regular WinMo users in the cold in terms of apps, especially considering the WinMo platform is one of the easier mobile platforms to develop for because of the languages and tools available through Visual Studio, etc.
But I digress. Since I already have a WinMo phone in the form of an HTC Touch Cruise (Polaris), I was originally planning to wait a bit until Windows Mobile 6.5 or even Windows Mobile 7 devices started rolling out, but I have to admit, the Sony Xperia X1 is one sexy device. I might have to break the bank to pick one of these babies up…
Size wise it a bit bulky, Solid build but easily scratch. I bought the silver one and sold it within a week. A bit slow and laggy in my opinion. Sony should implement either android or symbian 60 instead of windows mobile.