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. 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.
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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.

Features

On the connectivity front, the X1 has everything you can ask for--tri-band UMTS, quad-band GSM and HSDPA with a theoretical speed of up to 7.2Mbps. The unit also comes with Wi-Fi for connecting to hotspots and Bluetooth which supports A2DP for stereo headphones.

For navigation, this handheld has built-in GPS with A-GPS for quick discovery of satellites. We tested this out using Google Maps and found it to be very effective, though using it without the approximation afforded by A-GPS was painfully slow. Software for turn-by-turn navigation will not be bundled with the X1, so you'll have to buy that separately if needed. (Update: Sony Ericsson has clarified that the retail version of the X1 will include a 3-month trial of Wayfinder which comes with turn-by-turn navigation. This was not available on the review unit.)

Pressing the Panel shortcut will bring up this view where you can pick one to replace the default Today screen.
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On the software side of things, Sony Ericsson has included its Panel interface which can be brought up by pressing the X Panel shortcut button on the front and then selecting a panel from a maximum of nine options. Most of the panels at this point in time, created by Sony Ericsson, are replacements for the default Windows Mobile Today screen. One particular panel emulates the interface found on the PS3, letting you slide up and down to get to different categories like Music, Videos and Games. Another panel is specifically designed for listening to the radio with the FM tuner.

The main one is the Sony Ericsson panel which displays a large clock, Web RSS feeds, commonly used programs, calendar and so on. We found this panel really attractive to look at and quite useful, but also painfully slow. The sluggishness is especially pronounced when you switch from portrait to landscape mode by sliding out the keyboard, and also when you go back to it from another application. WM developer Spb has also created a Today replacement panel which was quite responsive in our tests, while Google has a search panel which essentially acts as a shortcut to the browser or Google Maps. The Panel interface is touted by Sony Ericsson as a platform for developers, but we'll have to wait and see whether this will become popular or if users will end up having just a handful of panels to choose from due to lack of third-party support.

Though the design is from Sony Ericsson, this device was built by HTC. Some of the Taiwan manufacturer's software has gone into the X1, including the Task Manager which lets you close applications easily from the Home screen. Another HTC enhancement is the fact that you can use your fingers to "push" lists up and down, a feature found in the TouchFLO interface since the first HTC Touch.

Needless to say, because the X1 comes with WM6.1, things like push email, productivity apps such as Microsoft Office and other PIM features are standard. Aside from Internet Explorer, Sony Ericsson has also bundled Opera Mobile 9.5 which provides a much better browsing experience.

Photos taken with the X1 were sharp and had good colors.
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The X1 comes with 512MB of built-in storage and has a microSD card slot for expansion. This is compatible with the newer high-capacity cards and will accept as many gigabytes of storage as you can buy from stores at this point. The microSD slot is found under the battery cover but you do not have to remove the battery to access it.

Found at the back of the X1 is a 3.2-megapixel camera with an LED light. We don't usually expect much from cameras on WM devices, given the track record. And like almost every single one of them, the X1's camera interface takes ages to load and is sluggish when adjusting options. Using the autofocus function was very slow as well. We found the feature that lets you select a focus point by touching the screen to be much more effective. Now that we have those minus points out of the way, here's the good part: The image quality blows the competition away. We transferred our test images to view on a desktop and the sharpness and colors produced are very good for a camera-phone. The auto white balance was not always spot-on, but in general you can expect the same quality as those produced by some of Sony Ericsson's other feature phones with good cameras.

Performance

With 256MB of RAM and a 528MHz Qualcomm processor, you'd expect the X1 to be blazingly fast. At times, it is. For example, when you enter the list of programs or settings, things just cruise along with no lag. Small Java apps open instantly and Google Maps works in just seconds. But as mentioned above, things get downright slow when you make use of the Panel interface and the camera application. At other times, switching between landscape and portrait modes also feels sluggish.

We got about two days of use on a single charge--not long enough considering it had a 1,500mAh battery. Heavy users should definitely get an extra battery. The rated talktime for the X1 is up to 10 hours connected solely to the GSM network or 6 hours while on the 3G network. Voice quality was good, so no complaints there. Video calls also appeared clearly on the other party's phone ad we had no problems listening to conversations using the speakerphone, thanks to the very loud speakers.

Conclusion

The burning question is really this: How does it match up to the HTC Touch Pro? The X1 is just S$50 more expensive, but you get a higher-resolution display, nicer design and a 3.5mm audio jack. The Touch Pro, on the other hand, has a more polished interface, thanks to TouchFLO 3D, a dedicated YouTube application and an accelerometer which orients the screen automatically and can also be used for games.

If you ask us, the X1 matches up very well, indeed, especially considering that it's a first WM attempt from Sony Ericsson. If you don't mind the slight lag in the Panel interface and average battery life, what you get is a very capable Windows Mobile phone with an excellent camera to boot. The 3.5mm audio jack is another bonus, particularly for those who use their phones as a music player. If you are looking for a high-end PDA-phone with a QWERTY keypad, the X1 should certainly be near the top of your list.