Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 review
Now that we’ve had some time to spend with the XPERIA X1, we’re going to break down the various features and give you our in-depth review. We’ll continue to update this post as we use the device more, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what’s at hand — a brand new Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1! Full review is after the jump. Pictures will be added shortly.
Screen:
With a 800×480 VGA screen, you can’t really go wrong right? Right. We’ve got to say off the top that this is the best-looking screen we’ve ever seen on a Windows Mobile device. It puts all the others to shame. It’s not just that the screen has an amazing resolution, it’s that the screen is vibrant and clear as day. If your vision isn’t top notch you might have to increase the font size in settings because it gets a little small with that super high-res. Sunlight couldn’t phase it either as we had no problem using it on the go outside.
Audio quality
We didn’t put the speakers through our normal tests just yet to be honest. We tried a couple MP3s and they sounded good, not great. The speaker volume in general could have been a little louder and the sound could have sounded a little fuller. Speakerphone was the same. We’ll report back with more detailed findings.
Notification lights
If you’ve seen the Sidekick LX, you’ll know what we’re talking about. There are 4 independant notification lights on the four corners of the X1. These are LED lights that change through various colors. Unlike the Sidekick, you have complete control over the notification settings. Only want people to think you’ve got a UFO in your pocket when you’re getting a text message? No problem. There’s a lot to choose from to suit your own needs. The lights offer a nice touch and weren’t too over-powering and bright which we were afraid of. The kids will love it.
Call quality
Calls came in and out with crystal clear quality. The ear speaker was plently loud and the party on the other end said we sounded like we were on a land line.
Data Connectivity
Name something you’d like to see in a mobile device… HSDPA? Wi-Fi? GPS? The X1 has all of it. T-Mobile USA lovers will also be overjoyed at the fact that an AWS 1700MHz version is coming. Our unit had the 850MHz/1900MHz US 3G bands so we were rockin’ over HSDPA just fine. In fact, web browsing was abnormally fast. We didn’t find much of a difference between browsing over Wi-Fi or HSDPA. That’s probably due to the bottleneck of the phone in general, but it was a pleasant surprise.
Build quality
Another winner for Sony Ericsson. While the device isn’t the lightest phone on the market, we think it’s build quality is almost second-to-none. Maybe even iPhone status. It’s just so sturdy and well put together. We have to give HTC some mad props on this one. Could you please try and incorporate some of this newfound metal addition into some of your devices HTC? Please. The sliding mechanism was fantastic even though the device isn’t a normal “flat” slider. Major points for build quality.
Usability factor
This could be subjective depending on your view of Windows Mobile, but we found the X1 to be on par or better than any Windows Mobile device we’ve used. Baring the keyboard issue, (see below) there wasn’t anything that hindered us from taking full advantage of the device. When closed, the device gives you access to all necessary shortcuts on the bottom front of the unit. Slide it open and you’ve got access to everything you could want. People have wrote us and asked about how it is to use the phone when the QWERTY keyboard doesn’t have directional keys, but they’ve overlooked something — the optical joystick. This works wonderfully well and doesn’t have a learning curve. It’s a natural extension of what we’ve been forced to use in the past. There was a “cursor” menu in settings but no cursor showed up on the screen. You also have full control over the sensitivity of the optical joystick. Making phone calls was comfortable and we didn’t have any issues with people hearing us or us hearing them.
Keyboard
The keyboard is a sensitive area for many people. Anyone who follows us know we take it very seriously — we put them all through the ringer! So, it pains us to report, that at least with our particular unit, the keyboard wasn’t great. It didn’t take time to get used to it, it just didnt perform like the way we had hoped. The reason is because the keys almost are completely flush with the case and don’t give good tactile feedback when pressed. Odly enough, the spacebar was actually ok. It faired the best out of all of them. We understand why there really is no travel in the keys — there is a huge sliding mechanism right over them — but we would have liked to see a little more feedback when typing. They have this triangular pattern on top which does make it easy to feel them, but you don’t get a good response when actually pressing them down. The backlight on the QWERTY ‘board successfully helped us find the keys when it was nightime, but that still didn’t help when typing. We said this before, but if we had to compare the keyboard to anything, it would be Sony’s UX-series computers. It’s the same exact thing.
Thank You Greeboid,
My friend has ordered his X1, my 18 month contract is up for renewal. We are in the UK and can get the phone with a contract.
http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phone/Sony_Ericsson/X1?lastPage=/mobile_phones/Pay_Monthly/page1
Regards, Yorkie
Any one bought yet? Or know a trustable pace to pick one up?
Jason, take a look a my comments. I have one. I am in the UK and I got a good deal with Vodafone , but you should look for a vendor that suits you.
I got mine about two weeks ago, Overall very impressive. AS a phone its not great though. I dont know if the dialogs its using are standard windows mobile or x1 specific.
Someone needs to take UI development serious. What a joke.
David
its an amazing phone but its very expensive!!!!
This phone definitely rocks!
I had this for a month and so now and never disappoints me.
Amazing!
Does it support UPnP streaming? That’s the only thing I need to know before I buy it, and which keeps me from deciding between this and Nokia N97.
^Get the N97 when it releases.
Thank god my contract is nearly up and I can upgrade! My K850i is a good little tool, but since I saw this back in Feb 08, I loved it, got to play with one and loved it even more. Now they are going free, and my contracts up…. Im off to get one! I know the apps are a bit slow in starting up, but when they do, they work great and I cant see me and a crappy nokia N97 getting on too well! The N97 feels too flimsy, as does the SE C905, and in my game that is no good. The X1 is a very sturdy phone that is great for business use aswell crawling under cars in the rain! Can’t wait to put it to the test! I’ll keep you informed kids!
got this phone a week ago, love the phone, good feature and design, fast internet browsing, but the only disappointment for me is it doesnot support the youtube videos and some of the websites….:(
is a 256mb / 512mb memory better with a mem card – or a 8gb built in mem????????? pls
Does anyone know when sony are due to upgrade the x1?
I’ve just got this phone, as a renewed contract, I love it, it is alittle heavey, but the quality of this silver phone is nice, and have picked up using it easy enough, well done sony eric!
I have to say, having had this phone now for several months, the operating system is crap.
Thank god SE seem to be making this a one-off.
I’ve used an Android phone and I have to say, it is way superior in terms of useability. I like the simplicity of hardware design as well.
The X1 hardware is fantastic though. As a phone it is a shame that the operating system doesn’t do it justice.
Also, the Blackberry Storm is also definite in terms of alternatives.
My advice: check out the alternatives first.
hi i bought this mobile but it not good
it have very problem
no g-sensor or other good thing that all htc hve it
Hi
i need help i bought XPERIA from uk and its only working with vodefone sim card, I want to use orange sim card in it .
please help me
I have the american version (X1A) for 3 months now. This is my first WM phone and I am very picky with technology.
I wanted that phone so bad that I spent a lot of time and money to get it.
I really like that phone for all the reasons mentionned above and more. What I couldn’t find when browsing the reviews was a comprehensive list of the cons of this model. Here are my points:
1- Camera:
Not good enough: too slow to load, too slow to take a picture, requires favorable ambiant light condition to take a sharp picture.
Video acquisition is undersampled making your video files not very smooth.
2- Battery Life:
I usually disconnect the charge in the morning. I use the phone every day. I’d say average of 200 Mb of data per day, 30 minutes of voice per day, 15 minutes of gaming. At this rate, my battery drops dead at 6 PM. I should lower my data usage but this is why I’ve purchased the phone, I don’t want to minimize the data consumption accordingly to the specs of the phone.
3-WVGA screen:
By far the best screen ever, but too few applications supporting this resolution so far. This is actually frustrating because most of my apps runs VGA on 2 third of the screen, leaving one third blank. Ugly.
4- Speaker phone quality:
Mono… Sound quality is poor. I’ve compared side by side with the N95, it’s night and day.
Everything else besides that is great. It is the best phone I have ever seen and I do not regret it. It is really fast, the keyboard is great, perfect for e-mails, internet browsing (Skyfire browser supports flash!!!), media handling and playing. Resistive touch screen is better than capacitive touch screen (you have to install a couple of apps first that give you feedback when you touch the screen and that minimize the pressure you have to put on the screen).
I have looked for this phone for months, I’ll be glad to share my experience to anyone who has questions about it.
Cheers
yann@3615toronto.ca
Yannos,
How would you compare this to the iPhone?
Thx.
Sean
Anyone know if this supports calls through Wi-Fi?
It’s a difficult comparison. The two phones are very different because of the operating system. You can’t really compare them. The X1 is definitely orientated for business use and computer nerds that like tweaking their phones. The Iphone is orientated toward users that likes having a finished well working product
It is like comparing a PC and a gaming console. The gaming console will always have better game versions but you will be able to do more stuffs with the PC besides gaming.
To summarize:
Iphone apps and responsiveness is faster. Which makes it more comfortable
Iphone screen is larger, more convenient for movies and watching pictures.
X1 has a better resolution allowing it much sharper screen details.
But the Iphone OS is limited. As always with Apple, the product is a black box. Even if you jailbreak it, there is too many frustrating issues. The copy paste was one of these frustrating examples (fixed in 3.0).
I think all Iphones users experienced this frustration at least one time. There is something we’d like the Iphone to do but it can not because of limitation on the OS. Like GPS navigating, Skype, copy paste, TV streaming, custom ring tones, customs background etc etc… We have to wait Apple to fix them and that’s the big difference with Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile users will have these frustrations sorted out by themselves. There will be always a way to fix this and that , thanks to XDA-developper ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=436) .Users will download the right patch or the right application. Finding it and installing it might be a nightmare for some users. Can be fun for others. But it will never be as easy as the Iphone app store.
Finally, I prefer my X1 because I am using it for business. I couldn’t do that with the Iphone.I like the X1 behaving like my PC. I have all my sales products/ customer databases / pricelist and Presentations on my X1.
Because it is Windows Mobile, I am browsing the files as I do on my PC and I like that. I instantly answer customers and attach brochures or documents along with my e-mails. I don’t use my laptop as I used to.
These are things I couldn’t do with the Iphone.
I would go back with the Iphone if Iphone would have a keyboard and Windows Mobile on it. But that will not happen so I am staying with my X1. It freezes sometimes, I have to reinstall some apps, I have to constantly monitor what goes in and where to optimize its speed. That sounds microsoft shit? Well it is, and I am so used to it that I feel good with it. Because it offers me endless possibilities to tweak it.
how can i configure my x1 back to its’ factory’s settings? and ive been having a problem where it sucks up all my credit without even using it! does anyone know what to do?
My biggest bitch with current mobile reviews is that too much attention is paid to the gadgets; cameras, games, maps, tunes etc instead of what the machine is all about in the first place. Firstly I want to know that if I am walking down the busy High Street with background noise will I hear the phone ring?. Will I hear it inform me that I have an appointment in 30mins time. Many phones fail this test and the reviewers fail it also. Have sold a third of my phones because of this problem. Try the appointment alert on the current “God Phone” the Apple Ipod 3g. Murphy
Just got rid of my x1 and got a htc magic, The x1 has great possibilites but sadly at the moment there is just to many things that go wrong with it, i sent my phone back 3 times before finally getting sick of it. its forever freezing and can be very fidgity. Im sure sony know all about its faults and im lookig forward to the x2 and x3
I bought the X1 — UK Version — on the 29th of June (about 6-8 weeks after seeing it with a friend who got one) & I have to say that it was a great investment for a while but it’s quickly beginning to feel like the biggest waste of 100,000 Naira (approx US$750). I had intended to get the Nokia E90, having used the Nokia 9500 from 2004-2006 but opted for this to avoid cross-platform compatibilities (Symbian-Windows), software availability, etc & I was looking for a business enhancement tool which would reduce my having to lug a laptop around all the time. The first omen was that I had to change my primary network from Glo to MTN because the X1 would work with my SIM card for only about 2 minutes then it would unregister from the network & fail to reconnect. I spent the first 12 hrs thinking the network had gone down. I then tried swapped SIMs (with my other phone) & realized that it works with SIM cards of all other GSM networks in Nigeria. Peculiar.
Now, I have to say that the phone was impressive for the first few months. I’m an IT Consultant & Web Designer so I invested so much on this phone because I needed to be able to do things like access my hosting servers on the go. I have successfully uploaded entire websites via the phone as well as carried out domain name registrations, website administration and online bank transfers. I don’t quite have the problem of keyboard feedback & so on that reviewers keep talking about (I’m ok with its design) but what I experienced was an annoying problem where characters were duplicated with single keypresses, forcing me to do a lot of backspacing, etc. This I understand has been fixed in an update. & some keys are just a pain to use, such as the shift and Fn (blue) keys. They either register double presses or sometimes just refuse to acknowledge that they have been presed.
Anyway, about 10 days ago, my screen stopped responding to touch for no reason. It started as intermittent unresponsiveness till it went totally unresponsive less than 24 hrs later. The phone did not suffer a fall or get wet. (I have in fact handled this phone even more delicately than my laptop.) I executed a hard reset, thinking it might be a software issue. Only to be met with the touchscreen calliberation screen! After several attempts at rebooting and trying to bypass the process, the touchscreen came alive just long enough to carry out the calliberation. It’s been dead since. This meant that all screen related activity now needed to be carried out via the keyboard; i.e. more sliding. Now considering that the entire UI was optimised for touch entry, it’s clear that approximately 50% of the usability of the phone has gone down the toilet. Joker: Opera Mobile was not designed for anything other than touch entry. So the only way I can use it is open it and type into the google search box (where the cursor defaults to) & try to TAB through the results & click with the Optical Joystick.
About a week after this, the screen stopped coming on when the keyboard was slid out. Being that I use the security lock feature, it means I couldn’t even enter my security code. After some blind guesses, I succeded & had to disable security so I can use the phone interface once I wake it up. So now I have a 100,000 Naira call pickup machine that will only let me dial from contacts because I cannot use the keyboard to enter digits. I can’t send SMS messages & can only get some level functionality just because of the X-Panels.
So I spent a hudred grand to buy a phone that:
1. Doesn’t last 24hrs on a full charge when you actually use some of the many wonderful features it’s equiped with to enhance your work performance.
2. Has annoying keyboard problems right out of the box.
3. Has a 3.2 Megapixel camera that is not worthy of the name Sony.
4. Has a mono speaker placed where the heel of your hand covers it in normal holding & does no justice to the SonyEricson reputation.
5. Has an annoying, disfunctional positioning of the X-Panel, Call Pick Up & End buttons.
6. A phone app that is poorly written & missing a lot of actual phone functionality. (It’s supposed to be a phone that does amazing things not a laptop that “also” makes calls).
7. A very low life expectancy.
I had been planning to upgrade to a later Xperia model but my experience with this one is almost putting me off SonyEricson altogether. Considering that I probably have to export this phone to the UK for service, I think I’ll sell it as soon as it’s back and I can eke some second-hand value out of it.
My advice to SE: Make your own damn products. I’ve used them before & can vouch for you. HTC I don’t know. (No offence HTC; I’ve heard only good things about your products that carry your own name.)
My advice to anyone wanting to get one: DON’T.
Exactly the same thing happened with my Mogul … from HTC. Screen stopped responding slowly…then died altogether. No more HTC for me. Thinking Sony may have made them produce better quality devices, this experience makes me completely change my mind towards a BB now …