Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 to land next month
Firm's first Windows Mobile phone release announced
Sony Ericsson has overcome most of the problems it encountered attempting to run Windows Mobile 6.1 on its upcoming Xperia X1 handset and has set a firm release date for the phone.
Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1: coming to the UK next month
At a London press conference yesterday, an SE spokesman told Register Hardware that the phone will be launched in the UK, Germany and the US at the beginning of October.
It was reported last week that only German punters would take X1 delivery in October, with other markets forced to wait until early next year.
However, the SE spokesman admitted, as he ran us through a physical demonstration of the phone’s features, that video playback is still “slightly jerky”. This is because playback isn’t yet up to the desired 30f/s, he said.
The phone's on track to launch according to a schedule posted last month by online retailer Expansys. The supplier stated in a promotional email that the phone’s “release date is set for week 41 (Oct 6-12)”. Expansys also said at the time that the "arc slider" will cost £590 ($1100/€740), SIM-free.
Although an official UK Xperia X1 price hasn’t been announced yet, the phone will be available in either a silver or black body.
COMMENTS
WM...
It's a shame it's running WM on it. I've owned mostly Sony Ericsson's to this point as far as phones go, even their UIQ phones. The UIQ phones didn't impress me much, but honestly, no smartphone does at all right now. This looked like it could've impressed me, but it's running WM and I can't have that, WM pisses me off too much.
Which networks?
Anyone know which mobile networks will be carrying the X1?
@ Paul Gamble
I haven't noticed any problems with graphics - videos seem to display just fine.
I disagree about the comparison between QVGA and the Touch Pro's VGA screen. Although they're the same physical size, you can zoom out a lot further on a VGA screen and, assuming you have good vision, you can still read the text even when it's tiny. With the screen on its side, I can just about read most websites without zooming in at all, something that's impossible with QVGA resolutions. The VGA screen was one of the main reasons I upgraded from my QVGA-equipped TyTN, and I'm loving it, especially when using Excel. The other main reason was so I could ditch my old Tomtom satnav and use my phone, which now performs the dual functions of satnav and mp3 player in my car, allowing the spoken instructions to overlay the music coming out my car's speakers. I bought HTC's USB adaptor for this, which allows me to plug in a headphone connector and car charger at the same time.
I'm not sure how apps will utilize the extra width of the X1's WVGA display, but I do know that the dot pitch is smaller, which means that unless you have superhuman vision you will have to zoom in a bit to be able to read web page text, which kinda negates the extra screen real estate a bit. The Pro has more memory too, which is always useful.
There is a fair difference
Although the X1 is being built by HTC, it was designed and specified from the ground up by SE. It therefore uses SE cameras and screens etc ... this should provide still and video along the lines of an N95 - much better than the toy town stuff on other HTC devices ... which is a huge difference - I currently have a TyTNII and N95-2 ... it will be nice to lose the latter.
Also .. whilst I agree about the pitch, VGA often provides little real extra screen estate than qvga - it just looks prettier. WVGA provides utilised extra estate for apps - I noticed this on the G900 ... so it is far far more practical the VGA.
I too have BT Stereo ... but having a real headphone socket is great.
The manual for the X1 also said it had proper hardware GFX acceleration that was exploited. It may well be that it isn't optimised at the moment but at least we shouldn't have the nightmare we had with the TyTN II where HTC refused to develop the drivers for the embedded hardware.
My hope if that the display is decent in outside light. The TyTN and TyTN II weren't great and the G900 was a disaster in this area.
Other things ... I suspect the radio will be at least of the spec in other SE devices like the T650i my wife has. The N95 one is unusable ... I suspect this will be much better than HTC designed gear.
I'm sure there is more ... but ... I think it more than differentiates itself from the pro ...
Paul.
@Whibley
T-mobile's web'n'walk does me nicely at £7.50 per month for all-you-can-eat bandwidth and I'm mostly getting HSDPA speeds. Haven't bumped into the "Fair Use" limits yet.
For all the automated updates I've set up, you need a decent data plan for sure.
Email, RSS feeds, GPS optimizations, Weather updates, MSN Messenger, TomTom Traffic updates, all need that bandwidth.
Incidentally, the X1 is entirely different hardware to the Touch Pro. Initial reports from those who've had hands on with both report the X1's keyboard sucks. Also the X1's panel interface appears to be just a sexy apps launcher (this remains to be seen). Touch Flo 3D goes a lot deeper and gives finger control, flick scrolling and zooming to most apps, even third party ones.
I gave up waiting for the X1 and thus far I'm not disappointed. Opera is so sweet, I'm using the "full fat" Facebook with no issues at all. iPhone users at work have stopped trying to show me their phones because they feel embarrassed.
