Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

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Windows Mobile (WM) may not be the most elegant of operating systems (OS), but you cannot deny its success with so many of the major mobile phone manufacturers signed up as licensees of the platform. Aside from the WM specialist HTC, brands like Samsung, LG and Motorola all have the Microsoft OS in their products, and the list is growing. The latest major coup is the inclusion of Sony Ericsson and its Xperia X1, announced earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress. As we approach the end of the year, this device is finally shipping and will reach consumers in November at a price of S$1,298 (US$922.14). Here's our review of this much-anticipated PDA-phone.

Design

Even though we have seen many stock images and live photos of it for the most part of this year, the attractive design of the X1 has still not been mimicked by any other Windows Mobile slider phone. Its dimensions of 110 x 53 x 16.7mm aren't exactly tiny, but for a PDA-phone with a slide-out QWERTY keypad they are very respectable. In comparison, the HTC Touch Pro measures 102 x 51 x 18.05mm. Though the X1 is both longer and wider than the Touch Pro, when put side by side, the X1 actually looks narrower. This is because the silver trimmings on the sides protrude a little, but the main front facade is smaller in width than the Touch Pro. At 158g, the X1, like the Touch Pro, is not for those who like featherweight phones which disappear in the pocket.

The X1 (right) looks narrower than the Touch Pro even though it is not.

The build quality of the X1 is good, with solid construction throughout and good use of metallic materials around the screen and in the back battery cover. The matte finish on these metallic parts feels good in the hand and lends a classy look to the device. We have the black version for review but this device comes in silver as well.

On the front and below the screen are two softkeys, the Call and Hang up keys, as well as two shortcuts. These surround a directional pad/optical joystick. The odd triangular shape of the buttons makes them hard to find sometimes, which can be annoying when you want to quickly access the phone application to make a call. We would have preferred if the Call and Hang up keys were larger as these are commonly used. On the flipside, the directional pad is sufficiently large and effective. The rectangular selector in the middle of it is also an optical joystick, which means you can slide your thumb across it to move a cursor instead of pressing on the directional pad around it. This, we felt, was more of a novelty than anything. Unlike Samsung's implementation, you don't have an option to use a mouse pointer on the display, which makes the touch-sensitive scrolling serve the same purpose (in most applications and lists) as the physical directional pad. Perhaps a third-party developer will make better use of it in an application than Sony Ericsson has.

Sliding the screen to the right will reveal the four-row QWERTY keypad. The keys are silver in color and quite faithful to a desktop QWERTY keyboard's layout. It doesn't have a dedicated row for numbers so those are found on the right side as secondary functions. While it may not have as many keys as the Touch Pro, the selection of keys is very sensible with dedicated ones for commonly used punctuations and also an OK key on the bottom right for getting out of menus. There's even an accent toggle which lets you scroll between accented forms of letters easily. A button marked "Sym" will bring up a list of symbols with 15 pages which can be scrolled through with the fingers so you can find the symbol you need quickly. Physically, we've seen better keypads. The keys on the X1 are too flat, so using the fingertips to distinguish one key from another is not exactly easy. But the well-thought-out layout makes up for this and we don't expect typing on it will pose any problem to most users.

The layout of the X1's QWERTY keypad is very sensible.
(Click for larger image)

One of the biggest features of the X1 is its 800 x 480-pixel screen. This measures 3 inches diagonally and is of excellent quality. At maximum brightness, it is brighter than the Touch Pro's VGA (640 x 480) display and displays colors more vividly. The increased number of pixels also allows the Web browser to show more in one page, though at the minimum zoom level it is almost impossible to read the tiny text.

Found on top of the X1 are the power button and a 3.5mm audio jack. The inclusion of this standard headphone jack will be a welcome relief to Windows Mobile users who are also music fans and like to use their favorite headphones. The stylus slot is located on the top right corner and contains a really thin and uncomfortable stylus--a longstanding feature of Sony/Sony Ericsson touchscreen devices and one that we wish would change. Charging and syncing can be done via a mini-USB port on the top left side.

On the right are the volume control buttons and a camera shutter which activates the camera application and also serves to focus and shoot the image. There are four points on the sides which light up according to certain events such as an incoming SMS or incoming call. They pulsate or blink in a few colors and can be turned on or off in the settings.

Tags: Keypad, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Pad, Camera, Microsoft Windows

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