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
Google Maps, Web Browser, Connectivity
Google Maps
The Google Maps for Mobile application comes pre-installed, and works just like every other Windows Mobile Google Maps client.
Thanks to the aGPS receiver that uses GPS satellite signals and cellular network signals in tandem, the XPERIA X1 serves up location information with the quickness. A quick double-tap on the screen zooms you in to a particular portion of the map. Likewise, the dedicated zoom controls help you make your way through Google Maps.
Google Maps for Windows Mobile doesn’t officially support Street View yet, but you get directions, nearby businesses, and one-touch phone number dialing.
Web Browser
Opera powers the integrated web browser and does a bang-up job of rendering web-pages with speed and accuracy. We’ve come to expect a lot from one of the biggest names in the mobile browser game, and the XPERIA X1’s Opera browser lives up to its expectations.
Double-taps are the easiest way to zoom in and out of full-HTML webpages that are rendered in their desktop-format. It’s nice to see smartphones sporting web browsers that deliver desktop-like browsing experiences.
If you’ve used Opera’s Mini or Mobile web browsers, you know that they’re about as good as it gets in the mobile world. If you haven’t tried them yet, do so… immediately.
Connectivity
The XPERIA X1 isn’t in danger of being dinged for having limited connectivity options. The quad-band (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM radio ensures that you’ll be getting wireless service in just about any country on planet Earth. The 3G data serves up wireless data at HSDPA speeds in most developed countries. The X1i, which we tested, sports 3G support on international frequency bands. The X1a, which will be made available in the US sacrifices the one of the European bands, but should still blaze through the mobile web on AT&T (NYSE: T)’s network.
When cellular networks are out of reach, there’s always the WiFi backup option. WiFi hotspots are available in any cafe worth its salt creamer, and works darn well as a backup data connection.
Just pop in your GSM SIM card and get to surfing whatever GSM network is available in your area.
Build Quality, Touchscreen and QWERTY Keyboard….
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.