Unlocked Mobile

Brilliant design, style, screen and features. Horrible Windows Mobile OS.
Like many tech fanatics, I eagerly looked forward to the release of this phone over a year ago when it was first announced. But after all that wait, I must say that I am a little disappointed with the final product. Sony definitely delivered a great looking and solidly built cellphone. However, the choice of using Windows Mobile on the Xperia X1 is the real failure of this phone.

If you have used the iPhone (OS X) or the HTC G1 (Android) and then you used a Windows Mobile phone such as the Xperia X1, you will be blown away by how poor an operating system Windows Mobile is. It is slow, buggy (even after its been out for ages), prone to crashes and restarts and not designed for finger touch.

The panel interface does little to mask the ugliness and user unfriendliness of Windows Mobile. With the exception of the sbp panel and the Sony designed media player panel, most of the other panels that are available at this writing are nothing to write home about. At the end of the day, the panels are just eye candy and are not enough to improve the user experience significantly.

That said, the phone is well appointed with GPS, a beautiful screen (800x480) resolution, nice keyboard, FM radio and a very handsome design. The screen clarity will impress you. I was able to watch a Divx encoded movie on the Xperia X1 and I was thoroughly impress with its clarity.

In my opinion, this phone would be better served if it ran Android (Google OS) instead of the crappy windows mobile operating system.

Pros:
1. Great design.
2. Very stylish and will grab positive attention.
3. Excellent screen. High resolution (800x480) Crystal clear, excellent for movies.
4. GPS, WIFI (802.11b/g), bluetooth.
5. Very good battery life.

Cons: (all the negatives are due to windows mobile)
1. Sometimes slow and buggy.
2. Archaic user interface.
3. Poor finger touch implementation (forces you to use stylus).

Best Cell Phone Out There
This is by far the best cell phone out there currently. I bought this phone about a week ago and was waiting for it for some time, but the wait was worth it.

The phone has many excellent features, such as:
o Multi band covering the whole world
o Full communication suite (BT, wireless, push email, Internet...) that is easy to setup
o Nice touch screen and nice panels, which can be developed by a normal user
o Office tools and applications
o and many more

Its features are better than many cell phones such as the HTC diamond, which is comparable to it, and is always said that this is an imitation of it. Moreover, it runs great and flawlessly.

The couple of things that I would like to be better are the speaker phone function, it just needs to be a little bit louder, and the multimedia player that comes with it, but again you can always buy third party applications that can cover all types of audio and video.

I'm extremely happy with the phone and recommend it to anybody and everybody.

Fully-loaded, functional and sleek, yet over-hyped, and certainly over-priced
I'll just list out the aspects of the phone. More convenient that way.

-Touchscreen: Not as responsive nor as user-friendly and intuitive as the iPhone, but definitely usable, stylus (which is provided), and finger-wise. Sharp, bright colors, with an auto-adjust function that works amazingly well, even in bright sunlight. Slightly recessed, so it does collect dust and other debris (which I found surprisingly annoying, since even lint easily picks up from my pocket), but overall, very attractive and usable.

-Windows Mobile 6.1: Though there are still some bugs, a marked improvement over the last version. The one really annoying aspect of the system is still the slow loading time, and the main nagging thing I noted is that there's a HUGE lag after text messaging, after the message informing you that the text was sent. The system freezes for a good 5-10 seconds, and won't let you do anything during that time frame. Mostly just annoying, though certainly not a detractor, especially if you don't text a whole lot.

-The keyboard: Spacious, despite the compactness, and slightly curved, with an assisted spring mechanism that feel very, very solid. The one qualm I have is that they keys are nearly flush with the tray, and the top row can be difficult to press, since it's nearly flush beneath the screen. Other than that, with some use, it's easy to get used to, and doesn't add bulk or awkward feeling to the phone, like some full QWERTY keyboards. The keys are also backlit, which is a nice touch, especially in shadowed or darkened areas.

-The keys: There's plenty of softkeys and shortcuts available, and they're very well-suited for the phone. There's an optical joystick (passing your finger over the surface allows you to scroll without physically pressing the top/bottom keys, or the screen), which also serves as an "OK" key. I really liked that addition to the phone, since I'm not a big trackball fan, and the sensitivity is customizable, since a too sensitive setting can sometimes lead to wrong commands. There's a dedicated panel key, which is somewhat like a home-screen key, since it takes you to the main panel selection every time. There are also dedicated phone keys, a toggle on the side for volume, and a power/sleep button on the top. They don't detract from the phone, and the only sticking point is that they're sometimes a bit stiff to press. Other than that, it's a nice, somewhat comforting feeling to have dedicated keys available, unlike the iPhone.

-The panels: These have been touted as, and are, really, the main attraction of the phone. They're are an interesting, very positive feature, since they're customizable (you can even move them around, though this has to be done through choosing a panel and editing it, instead of just dragging it across the screen, which would have been much more intuitive), and varied, and give the Windows system a more personal feel. They can be a bit laggy, but they're fun and functional (the fish panel is just amusing, with the ability of the fish to change color, follow the touch, or swim away if pressed), though I've yet to find a use for the Google page, since it always defaults to Internet Explorer, which I don't utilize.

-Internet browsing: Pretty snappy and speedy, even on the Edge network. The area in which I live doesn't support the 3G bands on this particular phone (I have the overseas Xi, while the U.S. will ship the Xia), though bigger cities with the 1900mHz towers do. I don't use Internet Explorer, since it's still one of the most useless and dated mobile browsers out there. The phone is shipped with Opera Mobile 9.5 installed, which works similarly to Safari on the iPhone, though thankfully the cut and paste options are available, unlike the iPhone. (Trust me, after you've given up that option, and then come back to it, you'll really notice the difference. Why Apple hasn't picked up on that yet, I'll never know...) There is also the option of downloading Skyfire, which works very well, sometimes faster than Opera. Both platforms support Flash, and display the full-page layout, like you'd see on your PC. Either way, pretty enjoyable experience there.

-Text/Multimedia Messaging: Windows finally incorporated the threaded conversation for text messaging, much like the iPhone did, creating a more "IM" feel to conversations, and making it much easier to keep track of specific conversations. It lags a bit, as mentioned prior, but a great improvement, without a doubt. It also does Multimedia messaging, and for that alone, in some ways, it is worth more than the iPhone, since Apple still refuses to include that basic function.

-Camera/Video/Music: The camera is 3.2 MP, a very decent camera, especially considering the phone size. It includes a flash, and can be adjusted for various speeds, colors, effects, etc. There is also a video-camera, which records up to 30fps, though only 24fps, I believe, for the American version. Why the difference, I couldn't say. The music player is easy to access (it has it's own panel), and there is also a Sony FM radio included, which is a nice touch, and easy to use, though only with the headphones included, since they act as an antennae, apparently. Still, very decent media package.

-Construction: I have the silver finish, which is really just stunning. It's very has a very durable, solid feel to it, though can be somewhat slippery, and feels very comfortable in the hand. The size in my opinion is perfect, compact and sleek, and though this means smaller screen size and somewhat cramped keys, it's really my favorite aspect of the phone. Has the old, comfortable handset feel of a Nokia candybar phone, actually. Sony really put a lot of thought and effort into it, and it shows.

-Other features: The 3.5mm headphone jack is WONDERFUL. I had a Sony a few years back, and the one sticking point that kept me from using it as a full-time MP3 player was the fact that I was supposed to use Sony's headphones. The fact that Sony has branched out, and incorporated the headphone jack, along with the capabilities for a Micro SD card slot (located on the side, when you remove the back cover), really shows that they're creating a platform which is more friendly to users who branch between companies. (Sony usually has their own M2 storage card, which is more pricey than the Micro SD.) Whether it lasts or not depends on their continued association with HTC, I suppose, who designed and helped create the physical phone. I suspect that if they next phone doesn't run Windows Mobile (which has been rumored), those features might disappear. Oh well. The fact that they're included on the Xperia is really a very nice, convenient touch. The phone also connected with the network very easily, loaded all the information, and formatted the phone, without any heavy programming from me, which was awesome.

Overall? Fantastic phone, with very reliable software, convenient system, sleek and sturdy construction, speedy network connections (even overseas), and plenty of opportunities for personal tweaks and modifications, given the open platform from Windows. I'd love to give it five stars, instead of the four, but the price was ridiculous, especially considering that it's really just another Windows Mobile smartphone, albeit better-looking and more personal than some others. Still, it's without a doubt my favorite phone to date, when combining the ease of use and construction appeal. Well worth buying, if you can burn the money.

another inferior HTC/Qualcomm product
Easy to Google for benchmarks and details, as with the Tilt, this is another HTC/Qualcomm device with well-documented, inferior multimedia capabilities compared to other (Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Apple, Nokia) devices. Current Qualcomm cpus have been well-documented to be slower than even circa 2002-2003 PocketPC devices when it comes to multimedia. It's unfortunate a class-action law suite hasn't panned out.

Even with the poorly received CLIE NX/UX keyboards, Sony hasn't improved their design.

It also doesn't help that this device was delivered with cracks in the casing so the whole first-batch of the US launch was recalled. Now what was a Nov 28, 2008 launch has been "back-ordered" until January, 2009.

Best Cell Phone
This is the only cell phone I ever bought that just worked right out of the box without a thousand questions. It connedted to the web, found new panals, downloaded my mp3 files and assorted and assembled all my music and video files. It is like haveing a real computer in the cell phone.

Voice was very clear and easy to understand. The speaker phone isn't bad but I keep blocking it with my finger. The position of the speaker phone not very good.

It is well build and solid as a rock. Most people are saying that it is too thick. It fits in my pocket just fine and I like the extra size and weight.

The slide out keyboard is real neat. I popped in a 8gb chip and it transfers fast and acurately.

Like everyone else the price is a bit steep but then you really get what you pay for these days.

Good: It really works with little effort
Mobile 6.1 is teriffic. Quite an improvement over the old one.
Screen Gorgeous
Slide out keyboard is a blessing

Bad: None (unless you think it is too expensive)


Conclusion

If you can afford it buy it. Great Phone.