Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Woohoo! It's the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 ..

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is the first phone from Sony Ericsson to feature the Android OS. It has a powerful 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 32GB internal memory and a beautiful 4 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front surface. This is ideal for the Xperia X10's excellent multimedia capabilities and for web browsing, which is supported by HSDPA and Wi–Fi.

The 8 megapixel autofocus camera has an touch focus, LED flash, face detection and geo–tagging. As you would expect with any Sony Ericsson Xperia phone, the media player is very good and supports all of the popular formats such as MP3, MP4, WMV, e–AAC+ and WMA.

With the Android operating system the X10 can be customised with downloadable apps from the Android Market. Users can quickly access Google services such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search and YouTube.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Specifications

• Size: 119 x 63 x 13mm
• Weight: 135 grams
• Screen Size: 4 inches
• Screen Resolution: 480 x 854 pixels
• Camera: 8 megapixels
• Talk time: 480 minutes
• Standby: 425 hours
• Operating System: Android
• Video recording?: Yes
• Video Streaming?: Yes
• Compatible Video: MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV
• Internet?: Wi-Fi, HSDPA
• Browser: HTML
• Memory: 1GB/microSD
• Music: MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV
• Email?: Yes
• Video Calling?: No
• GPS?: Yes, A-GPS
• 3.5mm Audio Jack?: Yes

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Review

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is the first smartphone by Sony Ericsson to run Google's Android Operating System. The previously released Xperia X1 and X2 phones ran Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 OS and Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 OS respectively, and they got a fair bit of criticism for the somewhat sluggish windows based user interface.

This time around Sony Ericsson has revamped the Xperia inside and out. Let us see what this revamped phone has to offer.

CPU, GPU and Memory

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has Qualcomm QSD8250 (Snapdragon) CPU running at 1 GHz, which is the fastest that is available for smartphones and can multitask without a hiccup. The CPU is accompanied by an Adreno 200 GPU to make sure that you get the best gaming experience on the phone.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has 384 MB of RAM and 1 GB of phone memory and supports microSD cards of capacity up to 16 GB. The nice thing here is that you get an 8 GB microSD card included in the box - a welcome addition.

Operating System

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 runs Google's Android 1.6 (Donut), which now is the second most popular mobile phone OS in the market today. Sony Ericsson has recently released an update to the newer Android 2.1 (Eclair). This update is easily downloadable via Sony Ericsson's website.

Android 2.1 has many improvements over Android 1.6, such as HD video recording (720p MPEG-4 format), the ability to send files via Bluetooth, new Backup and restore applications, multiple Google accounts, Quick contacts, Live wallpapers, 5 home screens, improved screen lock, updated and improved Timescape application.

Display

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has a scratch-resistant 4 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with WVGA (480 x 854 pixels) resolution capable of displaying 65K colors. The display is simply brilliant and the color reproduction is very good. Viewing videos and photos on the screen is a pleasant experience.

Camera

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has a 8.1 MP camera with LED flash, autofocus and 16x digital zoom. The camera application has features like touch focus, smile detection, face recognition, geo-tagging and image and video stabilization. The photos from the camera are crisp, lively and vivid.

The camera can record videos at 30 fps in WVGA (480 x 854 pixels) resolution. The Android 2.1 update enables the camera to record HD videos in 720p resolution; if nothing else it's worth upgrading your phone just for the HD video capabilities.

Multimedia Support

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 can play .mp4, H.263, H.264 and .wmv video formats. The supported audio formats are .mp3, .aac (eAAC+), .wav and .wma.

We should mention here that the Mediascape application, which has been developed by Sony Ericsson from scratch, is a single stop for all your multimedia stored on the phone. You'll be amazed at the smooth animations as you flip through the media stored on your phone.

The music player is really well designed and allows you to tag your songs, transfer them via Bluetooth or email.

The Photo application has a cool feature called face recognition, wherein you can tag a face in a photo and the application will tag the same face in all other photos as well.

Connectivity

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 supports 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM phone networks and 900/1700/2100 UMTS phone networks.

The phone also supports GPRS (class 10, download speed up to 48 kbps), EDGE (class 10, download speed up to 236.8 Kbps), 3G (download speed up to 7.2 Mbps, upload speed up to 2 Mbps).

The phone has 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v2.1 EDR with A2DP support for stereo Bluetooth headsets.

The phone has 3.5 mm audio jack and a microUSB 2.0 port for connectivity to the PC.

Applications

The second application that has been developed from scratch by Sony Ericsson is the Timescape application. It aggregates information from sources like Twitter, Facebook, SMS, Phone Calls, emails, photos etc. and displays them in a timeline format. The information is displayed like a deck of cards and you can simply flip through them to access a card from a specific time.

The other applications on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 phone worth a mention are - On-screen QWERTY keyboard (works in both portrait and landscape mode), Web Browser (webkit based), Wisepilot, Mediascape, Digital compass, Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Talk, Alarm Clock, Calculator, Calendar, Document Viewer, YouTube, Voice Memo, Photo, Music Player, TrackID, PlayNow, Facebook, Picasa and Twitter integration.

As far as messaging is concerned, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 phone supports SMS (with threaded view), MMS, email, push email and IM. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 users can also download thousands of applications from the Android Marketplace.

Sensors and Other Features

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 has the following sensors - Ambient Light Sensor (automatically adjusts the screen brightness depending on the light conditions), Proximity Sensor (turns off phone's display when it is held near to the face), Digital Compass (for direction), Accelerometer (rotates the display depending upon the phone's position w.r.t gravity).

The Wisepilot turn-by-turn navigation software takes advantage of the built-in A-GPS support.

The phone's body is made up of plastic and feels sturdy. On the top of the phone are the power button, 3.5 mm audio jack and a microUSB 2.0 port. On the left side of the phone are the camera button and the volume controls. There is a green colored LED near the earpiece which indicates and alerts for any missed calls and new SMS. The back side of the phone has the 8.1 MP camera, LED flash and the familiar green Sony Ericsson logo. The bottom of the phone has microphone. There are 3 buttons below the touchscreen - Menu, Home and back. The phone is available in Black as well as white colors.

Battery Life

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is powered by a rechargeable 1500 mAh Lithium Polymer battery which offers a talk time of 10 hours and standby time of 415 hours on GSM networks and a talk time of 8 hours and standby time of 425 hours on UMTS networks. The phone battery lasts for 1.5 to 2 days with moderate use.

Size and Weight

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 weighs just 135g (4.8 ounces). It is very sleek with just 13 mm thickness, 119 mm height and 63 mm width. In spite of the large 4 inch screen, the phone fits into your pocket as it is quite thin.

Conclusion

Sony Ericsson has revamped the software as well as hardware in the Xperia series phones with Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and has come out with flying colors. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is a winner on all fronts with its great hardware, 8.1 MP camera, upgrade to Android 2.1 and Sony Ericsson's UX interface (consisting of Mediascape and Timescape applications).

We've compared the cheapest Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 deals from all the leading UK retailers. And the results are in below..

The Xperia X10 is also available in:

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