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 | Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1The extra solid metal looks, gorgeous screen and the right pinch of novelty called XPERIA panels look to us as good enough reasons for the X1 to be hyped and romanticized. By the way, romance or not, Sony Ericsson and HTC have hit their perfect shape with that one. The XPERIA X1 is surely the most eagerly anticipated device in the world of Windows Mobile. Getting our review out was surely quite a wait too, we know. Better late than ever, as some folks say. We'll still have our say 'cause for the XPERIA it's a load of high expectations to live up to. Key features: -Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support plus HSDPA 7.2Mbps -3-inch 65K-color WVGA touchscreen -Qualcomm MSM7200 528 Mhz CPU and 256 MB DDR SDRAM -3.15 MP auto focus camera with VGA video recording -Four-row full QWERTY slide-out keyboard -Wi-Fi and built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS -X-Panels interface -Optical trackpad -Exquisite and solid metallic body -Standard miniUSB port and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP -microSD memory expansion -FM radio with RDS -3.5mm standard audio jack -MS Office Mobile document editor -Opera 9.5 web browser -Excellent Video playback performance -Superb Audio quality - Quality Ringtones supported. The XPERIA X1 is one of the best-equipped Windows Mobile devices to ever set foot on the market. But hey, is it not the most elaborate and charismatic PocketPC too? As to skills, the high-res 3" screen and the full QWERTY keyboard seem the most important parts of its magnificent ammo though its processing power is not to be neglected either. Many devices find their identity in standing up to a rival. The XPERIA though is fatefully bound to always have one foot on alien ground. The haunting name for the X1 is HTC - manufacturer and main competitor. As you probably guessed by yourselves the main alternative to the XPERIA X1 is HTC Touch Pro. It has a smaller screen than the XPERIA X1 and features a slightly lower resolution. In addition it is heavier and, if we were to be asked, not nearly as hot as the XPERIA. However, the QWERTY keyboard of the Touch Pro is well ahead of what the X1 has to offer. The Touch Pro accelerometer and active magnetic stylus are small but nice touches that add to its allure. There are other advantages too, but we'll try to list them in the dedicated chapter of this review. Design and construction The metallic finish also does its bit to give Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 a more sophisticated look and feel compared to the stepbrother HTC Touch Pro. We happen to be quite fond of the XPERIA looks. The phone looks pretty good in both color versions (Solid Black and Steel Silver) though we still tend to slightly favor the black one for its commanding charisma. Most of the front of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is taken by the large 3" touch screen. The front frame and the battery cover are made from stainless steel and don't attract finger prints at all. The rest of the body is made of solid looking plastic, chrome finish on the edges. Right above the display we find the slim earpiece, symmetrically accommodating the ambient light sensor and secondary videocall camera on each side. Beneath the screen, the X-styled navigation deck catches the eye. Not only are the keys molded accordingly, but the borders between them backlight in solid white to form two prominent X patterns. The usual suspects are all there - two dedicated call keys and a pair of soft keys and, of course, a D-pad with a confirming center that doubles as an optical trackpad. The last two controls here are the X-PANEL key and OK knob. What may seem as inadequate real estate for a crowded navigation deck actually works quite fine. Most of the controls offering pleasing ergonomics and functionality. We would've liked a more distinct press in the Call and End keys but it isn't such a big deal. Our biggest concern is the Up key on the D-pad. It is the least projecting bit of the 5-way key, a proper press unpleasantly obstructed by the upper end of the black plastic panel. Its rigidity and low stroke are utterly inconsistent with the rest of the D-pad sides, which are ample and tactile. The confirming center is also quite friendly - pleasingly soft to the touch but still offering a remarkably distinct press. The optical trackpad is pretty responsive and 5 sensitivity levels make sure everyone will find their favorite setting. The QWERTY keyboard is one of the most notable differences between the XPERIA and the Touch Pro. The giant Space and Enter keys on the XPERIA may initially impress you but it takes only a couple of minutes to conclude that the 5-row QWERTY keypad on the Touch Pro is the more typing-friendly solution. The keys on the XPERIA are aligned diagonally, as opposed to the straight layout in the Touch Pro. The size, shape and tactility of the XPERIA keys are quite alright but the shorter slider run has taken its toll and the four QWERTY rows are no match for the Touch Pro keypad. The insufficient headroom for the upper row of keys puts the XPERIA to a definite disadvantage. Still, the better viewing angle of the screen - when typing on the QWERTY keyboard - sure is an asset, which XPERIA owes to the arc slider form factor. Plus, the actual sliding action is smoother than the Touch Pro. Upon opening the keypad, the screen of course automatically rotates to landscape. The right side hosts the volume rocker at the top and the shutter key all the way down. They are quite comfortable and well integrated with the overall design. Though quite slim, the camera key is pleasingly responsive, with a distinct half press. The volume rocker doubles as zoom lever. For your convenience, the shutter key is symmetrically replicated by a small recess on the left side, which in shooting mode serves as a comfortable thumb rest. All the way up on that left side is the miniUSB port that is also used for charging the handset. XPERIA X1 has a very elegant eyelet on its bottom for attaching different accessories or a wrist strap. It makes attaching stuff very easy, and is discrete enough if you decide not to use it. The top of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 features the power button, 3.5 mm standard audio jack and the stylus compartment. Unlike the HTC Touch Pro, there is no magnetic action with the XPERIA X1 - you have to push or pull it out manually - and the stylus isn't active. Finally there are four status LEDs along the sides of the handset. The upper pair twinkles in red for errors and empty battery while the purple blinks of the lower ones are triggered by a number of applications. Under the rear cover of the XPERIA X1 lies an impressive 1500mAh Li-Ion battery that powers the Sony Ericsson PocketPC. We pushed the phone to its limits and it held for two days of severe torture on a single charge. Not bad, and a point scored against the Touch Pro. The other thing under the rear cover is the microSD card slot. This surely isn't the most comfortable place since you need to remove the cover every time you need to replace your memory card. At least the memory card is still fully hot-swappable. The 3.2 megapixel snapper and the LED flash are at the top of the rear, placed within a black nest of hexagonal shape. High-res display Someone might ask how come Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 gets the better treatment than the Touch Pro in terms of screen size as they have one and the same manufacturer, but let's not forget HTC have the Touch HD already and can afford to show some generosity to the competition. A 3-inch diagonal accommodating 800 x 480 pixels (yep, Touch HD again) is at this point the ultimate in full-QWERTY PocketPCs. The 2.8" VGA display of HTC Touch Pro should feel quite threatened as the XPERIA outdoes it in both size and resolution. The image quality is great although someone would make a case of the XPERIA's 65K-color support "only". But really, there aren't that many cases when the difference between 65K and 16M colors is visible to the naked eye. The XPERIA X1 is a pleasure to look at and handle in the dark, with its strong and even backlighting and bright display. However, going outside on a bright sunny day you're in for a serious problem. The X1 has the same weakness as most other WinMo phones out there - poor sunlight legibility. The fingerprint smudges on the screen don't help things either. The 3" display is sunk a millimeter from the surrounding surface and this solution has both its pros and cons. Not only does it offer some degree of protection, it also facilitates operating with the stylus around the edges - exiting applications, hitting the battery indicator, wireless network icon or the sideways scrolls. However if you prefer to use your fingers you are in for quite a hard time. Icons, start menu and scroll bars are tiny and stylus skeptics (like us) will need either long nails or strong nerves to get to them. This of course also has much to do with the high screen resolution. We've got to say, that HTC have done a far better job of scaling the UI of the Touch HD to make it thumb-friendly. The touchscreen responsiveness is better than the Samsung Omnia's but nowhere near the iPhone standards. Windows Sony Ericsson have still put a few personal touches to Windows Mobile. A task manager has been added - courtesy of HTC actually, and the same as in the Touch Pro - but it's only accessible from the home screen. Image galleries benefit from the high-res screen The Sony Ericsson X1 comes with the Pictures & Videos application, which is the standard WinMo issue and is a real let down in terms of user-friendliness. When viewing an image you can zoom in and a mini-map appears so you can use it to navigate around the image. There are also basic image-editing options, such as rotate, crop and auto-correct. The Windows Image gallery falls quite short of the Sony Ericsson own application, which is launched from the Media Xperience panel. The panel itself takes after the Media Center we've seen and appreciated across a range of Sony Ericsson feature phones. The high-res display is also more than welcome when browsing pictures on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. Thanks to the WVGA resolution you can see more detail on the screen than any other handset out there (except for the HTC Touch HD of course). Music and Videos The XPERIA X1 comes with the standard Windows Media Player, which clearly underperforms. It only manages mp4 and 3gp and for DivX/XviD you will need a third party application. The arc slider does give the display a bit of tilt, but hardly enough to make a great difference for watching videos. The Windows Media player doesn't do too well in the music playing department either. The interface is stylus oriented. Tracks and videos are handled much like in the desktop version. Again, the Media Xperience panel is the way to go. It launches an interface identical to the Media center found on the Sony Ericsson feature phones with a pinch of touch optimization. And as you probably know if you have been keeping track of our recent reviews we really do like this media gallery. For DivX and XviD palyback we resorted to the well-known Core player. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 pleasantly surprised us here by being able to seamlessly play videos at a bit rate of up to 1.46Mb/s. While going any further than this is sure to result in skipped frames, this is a more than good achievement. In comparison, the HTC Touch HD, which has the same display resolution, was only able to handle up to 1.2 Mb/s. The XPERIA result is in fact quite close to the HTC Touch Pro but the latter has a smaller screen with 25% less pixels. So, watching videos is surely another point won for XPERIA X1 over the HTC Touch Pro. Audio quality Only since recently are Windows Mobile devices considered seroius music handsets. Before that their business orientation has served them as a pretty good excuse for the poor audio quality. However, the latest HTC devices were a clear sign that this is about to change. Therefore we were quite eager to understand if the XPERIA is the next step forward on this way. As it turned out the handset has the best frequency response we have ever seen on a mobile handset. In addition it also achieved superb noise level, dynamic range and stereo crosstalk readings. In fact its results on those are even better than the dedicated Apple iPod music player - how is that for a change? Unfortunately a price had to be paid and that is the rather high total harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion levels. Nonetheless it seems that there is not too much left before the WinMo devices start to directly compete music-oriented ones. The camera is disappointing Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. It also has a LED flash that is supposed to assist night photography but as usually its power is inadequate for producing a decent photo. On the positive side it can also be used as a video light unlike its xenon siblings. Having already checked out the camera performance our advice for you is not to set your expectations about it too high. Interface The main aim of the camera interface appears to be simplicity and it achieves it. Upon startup it displays a large icon (camera or filmstrip) to indicate the selected mode . There are two groups of overlaying controls. In the upper left corner there are indicators for "remaining" images/minutes of video, resolution and the location of saved photos. In video mode there is also an indication of whether the microphone is on. The other group is a vertical toolbar on the right side that allows you to switch between modes - photo, video and playback. When holding the phone in your right hand (as you will most likely do since the shutter is on the right) you can single-handedly toggle camera modes with your thumb. To work with the settings menu though you would need both hands but the layout of touchscreen controls is quite ergonomic. Navigating with the track pad is almost as easy. At the bottom is the Settings button. Pressing it reveals another vertical bar, this time on the left. It has four buttons - Scenes, Focus, Flash and Shoot mode. The appearance of each of those four buttons changes any time you select a specific setting, so you know which one is being used. These however are the basic settings. Another press on the settings button will bring up the advanced options. You can change resolution, color effects etc. This menu is not so thumb-friendly but you don't necessarily need the stylus, the track pad does just fine. Focusing is done by half pressing the shutter key. If touch focus is enabled you can move the focus point by touching any part of the screen with your bare finger. Image quality The image quality of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 isn't quite as impressive as we hoped. The phone fails to resolve enough detail in photos and dynamic range seems too low even in phone terms. As a result, highlight clipping is quite a common sight on the photos produced by the handset. Noise levels are also quite high and probably you should've got the idea by now that this isn't the best camera on a mobile phone we have seen. At least the colors are rather precise on most occasions and if you steer clear of scenes that are too challenging for the dynamic range, things could look pretty decent. Video recording At least the video recording capabilities of the XPERIA X1 seem more promising than the still camera. VGA resolution at 30 fps sounds really sweet and is quite adequate for almost any purpose you can think of. In fact, this may as well be the first PocketPC to offer that kind of video recording. However, the image quality is not as pleasing as it sounds - the XPERIA X1 video falls short of what some other VGA recording phones can offer. Most surprisingly our retail XPERIA X1 records in the inferior 3gp format. Connectivity True to is PocketPC nature, the XPERIA X1 offers excellent connectivity options - HSDPA 7.2Mpbs, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP + EDR are all on board. The handset features quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA support, as well as USB 2.0. You can opt for connecting the USB cable in ActiveSync or mass-storage modes. There isn't however a convenient connection type prompt upon every connection like we saw on the HTC Touch Pro. Instead you have to find the setting in the settings menu and do that again every time you need to change the connection mode. Last but not least, the memory card slot often proves quite comfortable for quickly transferring large amounts of data. Unfortunately, the memory card slot is under the battery cover so getting access to it is not a breeze. Web browser The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is equipped with the latest version of the Opera browser, which makes the Internet Explorer Mobile redundant. The Opera 9.5 browser is extensively touch-optimized and seems heavily inspired by the iPhone Safari browser. The WVGA display snatches a point again in the web browsing department. When the browser loads the full website preview, the minute text still remains recognizable. While it fails to deliver the same level of usability as the Safari browser, the Opera 9.5 makes up for it by throwing in a few features that totally lack on the iPhone, such as text copy/paste and a download manager. There is also limited Flash support. And a few words about the Opera 9.5 interface. By default web pages are opened fullscreen free of any overlaying controls. A tap on the bottom right corner however brings up the available controls. First, you've got the address bar at the very top. At the bottom of the screen there is a row of icons that can take you back, take you to bookmarks, bring up the tab switcher, the home page or the browser settings. GPS Navigation The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 also features a built-in GPS receiver - it's the same Qualcomm gpsOne chipset, which we found on the competing HTC models. This of course is hardly a surprise. The X1 supports the Assisted-GPS technology, commonly known as A-GPS. It means you can download current satellite data over Wi-Fi or the 2G/3G network for a much faster satellite lock. Unfortunately much like the HTC Touch Pro, the XPERIA X1 doesn't have a GPS navigation application pre-installed, so you have to purchase one separately. Just to get you started, there is Google Maps pre-installed. With a dedicated GPS app installed, it performed admirably as an in-car navigation unit. When it comes to displaying maps on screen, the WVGA display is undoubtedly a great advantage. It offers much more detail than the iPhone for example at relatively the same level of magnification. While we are pretty happy with the GPS sensitivity of the Qualcomm gpsOne chipset, the same doesn't go to its energy efficiency. The competing SiRF Star III chipset is much better at that. Coupled with the high-res display, the XPERIA X1 simply cannot offer as much power autonomy with the GPS switched on. |
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