Review: Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1

Build Quality

“XPERIA X1″ and “impressive build quality” go hand in hand. Like many other solidly built smartphones, the XPERIA X1 was manufactured by HTC, so you know this sucker is built like a rock. From its metal battery cover to the metallic accents to its perfectly weighted in-hand feel, the XPERIA X1 makes for a solid handset. Buttons are firm and give way with a satisfying click. And, that slide-mechanism that we keep mentioning? It’s a slick, spring-loaded dream. Excuse us while we amuse ourselves with the slick slider – snick, open; snick, closed; snick, op… okay we’re done now.

On issue with the sliding keyboard design is that it tends to wiggle a bit in the open position. We can forgive the loosey-goosey slide-mechanism because it’s just so darn slick, but it would have been nice to have a more tightly-built slide. Something to think about for the XPERIA X2, eh, Sony Ericsson?

Touchscreen

Unfortunately, it can’t all be good. The XPERIA X1 drops the ball when it comes to the touchscreen. The incredibly high-resolution WVGA touchscreen uses a resistive-based touchscreen technology – the “squishy” kind of touchscreen that responds to pressure-based inputs. The resistive touchscreen makes for a bit of an awkward touchscreen experience.

Sure, pressure-sensitive touchscreen work well even with gloved fingers, but we would have been more than happy to see the XPERIA X1 sporting a capacitance-based touchscreen.

You’ll probably find yourself having to deftly maneuver your fingernail to get at the right portion of the touchscreen. Good thing there’s a stylus integrated into the handset. Stylii are soo two years ago.

QWERTY keyboard

The slide-out keyboard. Some handsets do just fine without a physical QWERTY keyboard, but others need a hard-keyboard. The XPERIA X1’s Windows Mobile-based UI and pressure-sensitive touchscreen almost necessitate a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. This the last touchscreen-rant you’ll have to read in this review.

The QWERTY keyboard keys are well spaced, ensuring that you’ll be tapping away, typo-free, in no time flat. But, the ample spacing between keys, combined with large keys, means that the keyboard sacrifices character options in the name of comfort. The keyboard is nice and tactile, feels good in the hand, and makes for speedy typing. But an extra row of keys wouldn’t hurt – it felt like our thumbs were hitting up against the upper-slide when typing on the top-row of keys.

Did we mention the slick, spring-loaded slide mechanism? It’s soo cool! Seriously, just play with one and you’ll know what we mean – or just take our word for it!

Camera and Panel UI….