Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 – Review

With the SE X10 soon to be released here in Australia, I thought I’d do a quick review on it considering I just got my hands on one.

Pros:

• Sleek, flowing design fits right in your hand
• Crisp, large 4″ capacitive touch screen
• Fantastic UI
• Social Integration
• 1GB internal storage, with 32GB (capable) SDcard slot
• 1GHz SnapDragon CPU
• 8.1MP Camera

Cons:

• No Multitouch (never will be)
• No FM Radio
• Only 65K colours in the screen (16M capable with Android 2.X)
• Fairly weak loudspeaker
• Turns itself on when charging, making charging the device take years

Display
The display on the X10 is very impressive. With 4″ of real estate & 854×480 resolution, it’s crystal clear. So clear in fact, you can read small text on a website even when zoomed a fair way out.

The 65K colour limitation because of Android 1.6 is not all that evident, except when watching a video, it tends to lose clarity. Otherwise everything looks very crisp. The update to Android 2.1 will fix a lot of the issues plaguing X10, such as this colour limitation.

Responsiveness on the screen is sometimes not so great, this is also an Android 1.6 problem, which affects the user when trying to click on smaller icons, such as keys on the on-screen keyboard (OSK).

Camera
The X10 packs a 8.1MP Camera which takes a stunning photo, for a mobile device. It’s great for someone who likes taking photos, but isn’t a camera pro. There are enough settings on the camera to keep you playing with it all day.

I quite like the idea of Face Detection & Smile Detection as well as the ability to focus on multiple objects in one photo. Very clever!

Below the camera on the rear of the phone is also a small LED. It’s not a very intense light, but will do the job if you’re taking a few close range shots in the dark.

Design
The design of the X10 is flawlessl. Smooth, fluid curves with not a sharp edge in sight. The curves on the side of the phone also help it to sit flush in your hand. Perfect!

On the right hand side edge of the phone, you’ll find the volume up & down rocker as well as the dedicated camera button, which when held down outside of the camera application, will open the camera app up for quick photo taking.

Below the screen there are 3 hardware buttons (much better than the touch buttons on the N1!), Menu, Home & Back.

On the bottom of the device is a lanyard holder.

The left hand side has the microphone and the loud speaker.

Top of the device sits the 3.5mm headphone jack, the power/lock key & MicroUSB input for charging and mounting the sdcard to your computer.

Interface
The striking blue interface is brilliant. It’s very vivid and everything stands out perfectly.

Sony Ericsson’s flagship applications, TimeScape & MediaScape are very well made and extremely informative.

Also, there is hardly any lag in these apps at all, to my surprise. I was expecting a lag-fest, but once all the information is loaded, everything flows very well.

Nearly all the menus are themed in the “trademark” blue, except for a few with pop up in the bland grey found in Android.

Sony Ericsson have done well to not try and hide Android, but change it. They’ve made a new user experience out of it, even though all the well known Android tid-bits are still found, so well done SE, you’ve done an amazing job.

On-screen Keyboard (OSK)
The OSK of the X10 is really quite a let down. I tried it a few times when I first got my hands on the X10, but quickly changed it back to the basic Android OSK, but even that was pretty crap. I have ended up installing the HTC OSK, which works a charm. So props to HTC for making such a great input method.

If there is ANYTHING you’d like to know about the X10, feel free to leave a comment below 🙂