The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is now officially available in Canada, something that we’ve been waiting to experience for a very long time. This is Sony Ericsson’s first venture into the Smartphone market and they’ve had a little help from HTC to manufacture the device.
I love the design of the X1 – it has somewhat of a classic Sony Ericsson feel to it but with a increased amount of elegance. This could simply due to the all metal finish… which makes this comes in at a hefty 158 grams. As we said before in comparing to other devices this is a bit on the heavy side (the iPhone 3GS is 135 grams and the HTC Magic is 119 grams). Overall dimensions are 4.4 x 2.1 x 0.7 inches and feels great in your hand, I mean when you are holding this it feels like you’re getting what you pay for. The X1 has a 3.0-inch VGA touchscreen with a resolution of 800×480. For the size of the device I think they made great use of the screen space. You’ll see there are the usual call, end, OK and soft keys. These are again styled to fit the design of the device. What is new is the “Panels” button (more on this below). Other manufacturers are now putting into their devices what the X1 already has, this is the optical mouse and it makes scrolling through your applications, e-mails etc incredibly easier. You can also change the sensitivity of the mouse so it won’t go flying around your screen.
When you slide the X1 open you reveal a 4-row full QWERTY keyboard. The keys have a nice metal finish to them and are somewhat raised and have their own style to them also. The space bar if large and there is a dedicated @ button that will make typing out your e-mails/messages easier. Since this runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, they’ve added a button that takes you directly to the “Start” menu for quick access to your apps and programs. For your e-mails you can use the mouse or the touchscreen to find your messages. Plus you can also simply start typing with the keyboard and it will automatically start finding and alphabetically list your e-mails. This also has threaded text and picture messaging with a maximum 160 characters.
The X1 has a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash. This also has video capabilities. The quality of pictures were decent and even night shots were great. The output when we shot a video was good too but the sound was a bit muffled. What is nice about this is that you can simply play your pics, or share them, in an album format. You can also download a “Slideshow Panel” to make your pictures show up on your home screen.
Regarding the “Panels” interface, these are essentially somewhat customizable home screens that you can switch between to always ensure the applications most important to you show up. For example there is a standard Windows Mobile look, Media Xperience, Google, FaceBook, 3D-Fish etc. You can load up to a tolal of 9 panels and easily switch between them, these can be viewed either in portrait and landscape mode. To access your panels you can simply press the “X PANEL” button on the lower left side of the X1. All your activated panels will show up and you can scroll through them (either touchscreen or mouse) and to choose the desired one. This is actually a pretty cool feature, but over time can see this simply getting old (More in the video below). More panels can be downloaded via your X1 or at the Sony Ericsson Fun & Downloads web site.
This comes with an 8GB microSD card and can hold up to 16GB. So there is enough memory for all your music, pics and videos. Other key features of the X1 are the 3.5 mm audio jack and the inclusion of an FM radio entenna… this makes using the Media Xperience Panel and the XPERIA Radio Panel fun to use.
Surfing the web was good thanks to Opera Mobile. It also comes with Internet Explorer that’s just a pain to use. Speeds were fast, has Wi-Fi and can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode. With Opera Mobile it renders the web pages as it would on your home/work computer. You can access this from many areas, including the Google Panel interface. Just remember that when you are typing your search or typing the URL you’ve got to get familiar with the X1 keyboard and how tight it is. The keys again are somewhat all close together. Good news though as this comes with a stylus to help you navigate to the places you want faster. Overall good experience with the web.
Check out the full review here:
This now can be your on the following price Voice and Data plans:
3-year: $249.99
2-year: $449.99
1-year: $549.99
Outright: $599.99
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