Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 deals & review

Sony Ericsson has made clear its product strategy to offer the widest possible product line to its markets. That includes offering smartphones in as many platform flavors it can support. 

It already has the Symbian OS in the Satio and Vivaz, the Windows Mobile on the XPERIA X1 and X2. With the emerging Android markets, it won’t be left behind after Motorola as already thrown in its weight behind it for all its smartphone offerings.

Enter the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10, it’s Sony’s first Android smartphone powered by one of the most powerful engines on the planet – the 1 GHz Snapdragon from Qualcomm. After delaying its launch, the X10 should be perfect by the time it reaches it markets, never mind that it is still using the outdated Android 1.6 Donut but tweaked with a Sony-customized Rachel/UX (User eXperience).

Almost Perfect Features

Being first on anything is not always a good thing. But being minimally flawed can also be good as it allows firmware updates to the XPERIA X10. For sure it will benefit activating its support for video calls despite having 3G, provide DivX/Xvid playback, improve its audio quality as well as activate a radio receiver that currently does not exists

But being the most expensive Android touchscreen at €800, the market expects more. While its UX user interface provides a really fresh mobile phone experience, many will wonder why it didn’t get the latest Android 2.1 Éclair. But for many waiting in the wings to get their hands on the X10, these are minor quibbles as the feature set on the X10 is exemplary on its own.

You get all the data connectivity options with HSDPA at 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA at 2 Mbps on a tri band UMTS on 3G for T-Mobile as well as class 10 GPRS/EDGE at 236.8 Kbps on 2G. 

You also get WiFi 802.11b/s with DLNA, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and microUSB 2.0 for local data transfers. SatNav gets an integrated GPS with A-GPS and Google Maps preloaded. What stands out is its gorgeous 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display with Wide-VGA resolution and 65k colors with accelerometer and scratch-resistant surface.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 gets high end imaging with a superlative 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, touch focus, image stabilization, face/smile detection, geo tagging and WVGA video recording at 30fps.   There’s no FM radio but you get the media players for the popular audio and video files minus DivX/Xvid. Stereo listening gets a 3.5mm audio jack and you can do wireless with A2DP.

On board memory gets a 384 MB RAM with 1 GB of storage its microSD slot can expand up to 16 GB and comes an 8 GB microSD card in its sales kit. Its 1500 mAh Li-Po battery (BST-41) enables you to go up to 10 hours of talk time on 2G and 415 hours on standby. SAR EU s rated at 1.4 watts/kg.