Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Full Review

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is the first Android based phone from the manufacturer and it is quite clear that they haven’t taken things lightly with the Android OS. The X10 brings a number of new additions to the mobile OS and manages to get noticed over the growing herd of Android smartphones.

Features

It’s quite disappointing that the Xperia is limited to Android 1.6 since there are a growing number of phones in the market now sporting the new Android 2.1. This looks even starker when you consider that Android 2.2 is on the horizon. Yes, the X10 will be getting Android 2.1 sometime at the end of the year but I don’t know why such a high-powered device was launched with a relatively old OS, especially when there were newer options out there. However, the X10 doesn’t remain content with the default Android look and Sony Ericsson have done their best to shake things up and make the phone more interesting for the user.

The Xperia might just be the best looking phone I have ever reviewed

For one there is the much talked about Timescape and Mediascape additions to the UI. The former is a neat idea; it puts all your recent activity on the phone like pictures taken, videos shot, messages written, calls missed or made, Facebook updates etc. right upfront arranged according to time. If you aren’t that interested in your friends’ Facebook activity or what your camera has been shooting, then you can customize the application to show only what you want to see (for e.g. I set the Timescape to only display my call log and messages). This really helps you get one touch access and reduces the need for you to go to your message centre or address book.

The Timescape UI at work.

Mediascape, on the other hand, looks good but isn’t much more than a prettied up media gallery. You can view your recently added, played media or access your Picassa or Facebook albums. There isn’t much else you can do with it but it’s good to see that Sony Ericsson did try some new things.

The Mediascape UI is a different take on the ususal media library.

The X10 boasts of all the bells and whistles that high-end smartphones possess. It has full fledged connectivity options including support for Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS. It comes with 1GB of internal memory and includes an 8GB microSD card. It uses a microUSB port to connect to the PC or to charge and has a 3.5mm headphones jack.

It also has a large 4-inch capacitive touchscreen and an 8MP camera with an LED flash. It also comes with the Moxier suite for setting up your Microsoft Exchange account and an office suite that lets you work with various documents. Plus, the Android OS means that you can download from the ever expanding Android Market.

Design & Usability

We got the refreshing white Xperia X10 model in our labs and I was relieved that I didn’t have to review another stern black smartphone (although the Motorola Milestone is coming up). The Xperia might just be the best looking phone I have ever reviewed and it is representative of innovative design. It could have ended up resembling the black monolith that was the HTC HD2 but instead the Xperia has all the right curves and angles to make it the Alessandra Ambrosio of smartphones. And in spite of plenty of plastic being used in the body (the phone’s, not the Victoria’s Secret model’s), the build quality does not feel lacking.

My first impression of the Xperia’s UI was very good. The main menu and the homescreens were fluid and responsive to the touch. Plus, Sony Ericsson’s cool blue implementation of the main theme was also good to look at. However, the more I used the phone, certain issues kept nagging me. First, beyond the main menu, the phone got sluggish. Apps launched after an annoying pause and rotating the screen also took an extra second. This lag was very noticeable in Timescape and Mediascape. The virtual keyboard, on the other hand, is quite accurate but owing to the large screen, I had a few issues when trying to type something quickly.

The X10’s display looks good even under sunlight and overall, it is quite attractive in spite of the meager 65K color output.

Browsing, Multimedia & Others

The default Android browser, irrespective of certain restrictions, works quite well on the Xperia X10, mainly thanks to its responsive touchscreen and its large display. It allows you an efficient way of managing bookmarks and also lets you open new tabs. The copy/paste functionality works better in Android 2.1 where it lets you directly copy text from a page, while in the X10, you need to select the copy text function from a menu first. The browser also doesn’t support Flash but if you want to view YouTube videos, it automatically launches the YouTube app.

The Xperia X10’s 8MP camera doesn’t disappoint. It managed to shoot very sharp images with good color reproduction even on a cloudy day. Also, in spite of being able to capture good details, the noise levels were kept to a minimum. The flash works a little weirdly though since it’s more of an LED light than a flash. It’s also quite weak but the camera still managed to capture reasonable low-light images. The X10’s video recording is decent but is stopped from being good as the videos we captured were choppy and stuttered a bit.

A picture taken outdoors and a close-up picture taken indoors (click the images to enlarge)

The X10 is also very good for listening to music and the playback quality is excellent. However, the Mediascape interface is confusing and takes some time to get used to. The bundled headphones are average and are aimed solely at bass-heads while the external speaker is quite disappointing and outputs really low volumes. The huge screen makes watching movies a real pleasure and Sony’s MediaGo software lets you transfer videos of common formats easily, although it did take an inordinate amount of time to convert and transfer DivX movies.

The Xperia X10’s battery has a quoted talktime of 10 hours but it underperformed during my tests and I was barely able to keep the phone going after a day of usage. The call quality should also have been a lot better and just like on the Vivaz, there was plenty of static and echoing that could be heard over the line.

Bottom Line

At Rs. 31,799 in India, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is priced similarly to the WinMo powered HTC HD2. It’s a tough choice between the two phones but I would give an extra point or two to the HTC phone on account of a better interface, better call quality and a better battery. If you are looking for a full-featured phone with a very good camera then consider the Samsung OmniaHD or Sony Ericsson’s very own Vivaz. As a high-powered Android device, the HTC Legend looks to be a better deal. Overall though, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is a beautiful phone with power-packed multimedia features that is let down by a slow interface and call quality and battery issues.