Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Update (25/11/2010): We've tested the X10 again following its upgrade to Android 2.1 You'll find our comments about how the handset performs with new hardware at the end of this review.

Sony-Ericsson has made a late entry into the battle for Google Phone supremacy.  The manufacturer's first Android smartphone is the Xperia X10, a handsomely sized handset with a generous range of features.  It faces the stiff task of helping the phone giant from getting back into its stride after a long time struggling to make a name for its smartphones.

Will a large capacitive touchscreen display, 8.1 Megapixel camera, and a powerful 1 GHz SnapDrgan QSD8250 processor running a revised, updated interface be enough to outshine the recent progress made by phones like the HTC Hero or the Motorola Milestone?  We'll find out in this test, but for the time being, you'll have to make do with Android version 1.6, which isn't the most recent.


Standing out

The X10 doesn't go for a subtle approach and does all it can to make its presence felt.  It's not that the sleek, stripped-down--albeit slightly plasticky, for the white version at least--exterior that stands out, but rather the imposing size of handset, which has rather ample proportions to say the least.  It comes close to the Toshiba TG01 and the HTC HD2.  The finish quality is excellent, and keeps up Sony-Ericsson's reputation in this area, which has been solid for years.

We were still a little troubled by the size of the small buttons at the bottom of the screen.  The thin little row is clearly more attractive than three chunky buttons, but it's also less easy to use.  It's still better than touch-sensitive zones that are all too easy to brush past by accident, but had they been bigger, they would have been much easier to use.


The 4'' capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels and is certainly great to look at, thanks to its size, resolution, contrast and accurate display.  But it doesn't have multitouch, which is a real disappointment.  The X10 will soon receive an update to Android 2.0 which does support multitouch gestures, including zooming in and out by pinching the screen.

Action, reaction

The X10 is speedy.  It starts up quickly and keeps up a good pace whatever you ask it to do, which is an essential strength of a handset like this.  Sony-Ericsson has tweaked Android by adding an extra software layer that it's christened 'Nexus'.  It's simple and pared-down, but does a good job of covering Google's interface, which isn't to everybody's taste.  That said, Nexus doesn't go as deep as the menus HTC designed for its Hero, which is so efficient at optimising the menus that it leaves you wondering what Android is doing at all.  That said, navigating through the menus is still generally fun and intuitive.  

TimeScape: social network aggregation

One of the current big trends for smartphones is bringing together all of your different accounts (e-mail, IM, social networks ...) in one place.  That's what the Sony-Ericsson-designed TimeScape app does.  The three different homescreens (three is a little stingy if you ask us) are also used for showing your SMS, e-mails, photos, status updates and tweets in an interface that looks a little bit like Apple's Cover Flow, where you can keep an eye on them whenever you like.  The other advantage of this system is that when you choose a contact, you get instant access to all of your interactions with that person, including e-mails, phone calls and Facebook messages.  It's a powerful approach, but be careful as it takes up a lot of battery power, often leaving the X10 feeling a little breathless.

MediaScape for multimedia content

Alongside TimeScape, the Xperia X10 also has the MediaScape app.  It's a multimedia library that provides access to all of your content (videos, photos and music).  Once again, it's a practical, well thought-out solution.

Web browsing is efficient, pages load quickly and your favourite sites are easily accessible.  There's still no Flash support.


The Xperia X10 offers a reasonable musical experience, whether that's at the level of the multimedia player's interface or the quality of the sound produced by the headphone jack.  Its camera is a touch better than than average for high-end handsets like this, an offers autofocus, digital zoom, face and smile detection and an LED flash.  As ever, the results aren't quite as good as more clearly-targeted cameraphones like those produced by Nokia, including for instance the N86, another phone with an 8 Megapixel camera.

Finally, battery life: you get a good day and a half out of this phone without needing to stop and recharge it.
 
Update (25/11/2010): The X10 has just been updated, which gives us a chance to have a look at some of the changes.

First of all, Android 2.1 looks much the same as Android 1.6, but has made improvements in two areas, the fluidity of the interface and the battery life. With ordinary usage, you get at least an extra 20% battery life, and flicking from one homescreen to the other takes place almost instantaneously. Google is smoothing out all of the areas that lag.

Another change is that rather than three, you now have five homescreens on which to display widgets and run apps. It's a nice idea, but not enough to make up for the lost ground. Similarly, if the phone can find a Facebook profile photo for the contacts in your address book, then it's imported automatically. It's hardly revolutionary.

We were promised a new back-up system, but it's still not as good as the ones offered by rival phones. It's still not possible to use Flash (even if that would have a negative impact on battery life) and, more annoying still, multi-touch gestures. That's a big weakness for a smartphone right now.

We're sure that anybody who already has an X10 will be happy about the upgrade, but it's not likely to convince many more people that this is the phone for them.