Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Deeko

Lifer
Jun 16, 2000
30,213
12
81
Originally posted by: brikis98
Updated the first post with a couple more reviews. So far, everything is solid. I think if I can find it for $600 unlocked, I might pick it up.

$600 isn't TOO bad. I did buy an Ericsson T68 for $450 back in 2002, with all the inflation lately that's probably about the same! haha
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
Update: just ordered this phone from ebay for $840 - $200 live.com cashback = $640. Still damn expensive, but hopefully it'll be worth it. I'll post updates and a review when I get it.
 

shocksyde

Diamond Member
Jun 16, 2001
5,539
0
0
Originally posted by: brikis98
Update: just ordered this phone from ebay for $840 - $200 live.com cashback = $640. Still damn expensive, but hopefully it'll be worth it. I'll post updates and a review when I get it.

If the phone doesn't give you daily reach-arounds, it's not worth $640.
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
just got this phone today and am writing this post from it. just some initial impressions:

* the screen is fantastic
* keyboard is pretty damn good. the tactile feedback is decent and i just dont seem to make mistakes while typing
* its smaller than i expexted in terms of dimensions but also heavy for the size
* the opera browser is good but not as good as safari on the iphone
* its pretty darn zippy and responsive in general although panels can be slow
* videos work well and music sounds great

more to follow as i keep using this thing
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
11/21 Update

I've now had the phone for a few days and have more comments to share. I'll probably write a full review after a couple more weeks, but here's what I've found so far:

The potential of panels is starting to come through. The ones installed on the phone by default are ok, but nothing special. However, there are already two excellent panels available for download online:

The Spb Panel is made by Spb Software, a company known for all sorts of well designed Windows Mobile applications. This panel is no exception and really showcases the strengths of this phone. It looks fantastic on the bright, colorful screen, it's extremely quick & responsive, has cool effects, and, most surprising of all, it's a genuinely good UI. You are within a tap or two of almost everything you need: the calendar, your email, any program, contacts, the time, the weather and more. IMO, this is the default panel the phone should have shipped with.

The TouchFlo3D UI (there are several versions of it listed in that thread) has been successfully ported over from the HTC Touch phones and can even be installed as another panel. It's built from the ground up for use with a finger, looks really cool, and even features a number of really cool extras, such as a neat email preview feature, a youtube app, a stock ticker app, a beautiful weather app, and cool touch based apps for viewing your photos, videos and music. Overall it's very impressive and runs smoothly. The only real issue they need to resolve is that it doesn't switch into landscape mode properly, but that'll probably be fixed in the near future.

With these two panels, the UI experience has been vastly improved over standard windows mobile and makes the phone much more pleasant to use. Having said that, there is no denying that the UI is still not as good as the iPhone. Even with the goofy Slide 2 Unlock app, which gives me the iPhone-style unlock mechanism, it just isn't as intuitive and simple to use. However, this phone offers a ton of other advantages - including a proper GPS, hardware keyboard, copy & paste, higher res screen, tons of room for customization, etc - that, so far, make it all worthwhile.

Although google maps works flawlessly on this phone, I really wanted turn-by-turn navigation, so I got Nav N Go iGo8, which has been great. Connecting to satellites has taken between 10 and 45 seconds and I have not had the signal drop once connected. The iGo8 software runs very smoothly (including all the 3d effects), calculates routes quickly and accurately and overall has been a pleasure to use. I've wanted a GPS for a long time and am ecstatic to finally have it as part of this all-in-one device :)

The phone itself has gotten a solid signal everywhere I've taken it and phone calls have come through nice and clear. However, I'll be able to better test this as I'll be traveling around the state a bit these next couple weeks and possibly even going to Europe for a few days in the middle of December.

After getting used to it, I'm even more impressed with the keyboard. I've tried typing with my thumbs and by laying it on a table and typing with my index fingers, and either approach works great. I make virtually no mistakes while typing, almost all the buttons I need are available and overall, it's MUCH better than the iPhones on screen keyboard. There are no arrow keys on it, but I've discovered that the optical button is easily accessible while typing and works perfectly as an alternative. The only thing that's really missing is a separate row for the number keys. To type numbers, you need to use the special function key, which does slow you down a bit.

For the most part, the phone has been extremely stable. An individual program or two has crashed, but never the OS itself. Even better, unlike other windows mobile phones (and windows computers) that I've used, the phone doesn't seem to get slower over the course of a day, as the 256mb of RAM keeps everything moving smoothly.

All of my music has worked great on the phone and the sound quality coming through the 3.5mm headphone jack (which is also a plus) is excellent. I also tried playing some movies on the phone and for those that play, I've had good success. Certain formats (xvid?) don't seem to be supported, so I'm still trying to figure that out, but the mp4 files that worked played very smoothly and looked awesome on the crisp screen. The youtube player that came with the TouchFlo 3D panel also worked very well (over wifi). The speakerphone is relatively loud for a phone and the quality is decent for phone calls. However, the quality isn't great for movies/music, although I'm sure it wasn't really intended for that anyway.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
32,911
11,047
136
Originally posted by: brikis98
11/21 Update

I've now had the phone for a few days and have more comments to share. I'll probably write a full review after a couple more weeks, but here's what I've found so far:

The potential of panels is starting to come through. The ones installed on the phone by default are ok, but nothing special. However, there are already two excellent panels available for download online:

The Spb Panel is made by Spb Software, a company known for all sorts of well designed Windows Mobile applications. This panel is no exception and really showcases the strengths of this phone. It looks fantastic on the bright, colorful screen, it's extremely quick & responsive, has cool effects, and, most surprising of all, it's a genuinely good UI. You are within a tap or two of almost everything you need: the calendar, your email, any program, contacts, the time, the weather and more. IMO, this is the default panel the phone should have shipped with.

The TouchFlo3D UI (there are several versions of it listed in that thread) has been successfully ported over from the HTC Touch phones and can even be installed as another panel. It's built from the ground up for use with a finger, looks really cool, and even features a number of really cool extras, such as a neat email preview feature, a youtube app, a stock ticker app, a beautiful weather app, and cool touch based apps for viewing your photos, videos and music. Overall it's very impressive and runs smoothly. The only real issue they need to resolve is that it doesn't switch into landscape mode properly, but that'll probably be fixed in the near future.

With these two panels, the UI experience has been vastly improved over standard windows mobile and makes the phone much more pleasant to use. Having said that, there is no denying that the UI is still not as good as the iPhone. Even with the goofy Slide 2 Unlock app, which gives me the iPhone-style unlock mechanism, it just isn't as intuitive and simple to use. However, this phone offers a ton of other advantages - including a proper GPS, hardware keyboard, copy & paste, higher res screen, tons of room for customization, etc - that, so far, make it all worthwhile.

Although google maps works flawlessly on this phone, I really wanted turn-by-turn navigation, so I got Nav N Go iGo8, which has been great. Connecting to satellites has taken between 10 and 45 seconds and I have not had the signal drop once connected. The iGo8 software runs very smoothly (including all the 3d effects), calculates routes quickly and accurately and overall has been a pleasure to use. I've wanted a GPS for a long time and am ecstatic to finally have it as part of this all-in-one device :)

The phone itself has gotten a solid signal everywhere I've taken it and phone calls have come through nice and clear. However, I'll be able to better test this as I'll be traveling around the state a bit these next couple weeks and possibly even going to Europe for a few days in the middle of December.

After getting used to it, I'm even more impressed with the keyboard. I've tried typing with my thumbs and by laying it on a table and typing with my index fingers, and either approach works great. I make virtually no mistakes while typing, almost all the buttons I need are available and overall, it's MUCH better than the iPhones on screen keyboard. There are no arrow keys on it, but I've discovered that the optical button is easily accessible while typing and works perfectly as an alternative. The only thing that's really missing is a separate row for the number keys. To type numbers, you need to use the special function key, which does slow you down a bit.

For the most part, the phone has been extremely stable. An individual program or two has crashed, but never the OS itself. Even better, unlike other windows mobile phones (and windows computers) that I've used, the phone doesn't seem to get slower over the course of a day, as the 256mb of RAM keeps everything moving smoothly.

All of my music has worked great on the phone and the sound quality coming through the 3.5mm headphone jack (which is also a plus) is excellent. I also tried playing some movies on the phone and for those that play, I've had good success. Certain formats (xvid?) don't seem to be supported, so I'm still trying to figure that out, but the mp4 files that worked played very smoothly and looked awesome on the crisp screen. The youtube player that came with the TouchFlo 3D panel also worked very well (over wifi). The speakerphone is relatively loud for a phone and the quality is decent for phone calls. However, the quality isn't great for movies/music, although I'm sure it wasn't really intended for that anyway.


I am sooo tempted by this phone myself, although I think I'll wait til after xmas.

What opera browser is installed? I'd suggest opera mobile 9.5 beta, its much better than opera mini.

Also what are you using to play movies? TCPMP is good at playing most things.

 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
Originally posted by: WelshBloke
I am sooo tempted by this phone myself, although I think I'll wait til after xmas.

What opera browser is installed? I'd suggest opera mobile 9.5 beta, its much better than opera mini.

Also what are you using to play movies? TCPMP is good at playing most things.

Opera mobile 9.5 is actually pre-installed, which is a vast improvement over the windows mobile default, IE.

As for movies, I've been using the default windows media player. I tried TCPMP, but it seemed slower on a couple movies - not sure if I have the wrong settings or something.
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
A couple more updates:

I had a chance to play with the phone's camera and video camera and the results were a bit mixed. The camera takes a little while to start up, but the UI is actually decent. You tell the camera where to focus by just touching that point on the screen, which is pretty sweet. Unfortunately, there is a very LONG delay when actually taking a photo. Several agonizing seconds pass between the time you push the button and the photo actually gets taken and by then, whatever you're trying to photograph has probably moved. This is especially problematic since pictures tend to come out blurry at the best of times. In short, the camera is only really usable in relatively well-lit scenarios where nothing is moving.

Of course, it's a phone camera, so I wasn't expecting much, which is why it's surprising that the X1 does a respectable job of shooting video. I have the European version, which lets me record at VGA (640x480) resolution. While recording, the image the phone is showing tends to be pretty stuttery, but the saved video is actually reasonably smooth. The quality is not spectacular, but it's good enough for little movies shot on a whim.

On irritating thing the phone (or, I supposed, Windows Mobile) seems to be lacking is a "wait" icon - like the Windows hourglass or OS X pinwheel - to indicate the CPU is busy doing something. It's very frustrating to click on a program, wait for it to start... only to realize your click wasn't registered. The opposite is annoying too: clicking on something, thinking your click wasn't registered, so you click again... only to find out the CPU is busy executing your last task. Worse yet, when that last task completes, your click sometimes is registered, usually with unexpected consequences. All that's needed to solve the problem is a simple visual indicator, but there's none to be found.

Finally, I used the GPS (with IGO8) for a good hour yesterday and was VERY pleased with the results. It connected almost instantaneously, did not lose the connection, seemed to locate me very very accurately, calculated routes quickly and got me to my destination perfectly.
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
More updates:

I had some weird software crashes/behavior the last day or two. Opera has flat out crashed on me two times, once while browsing anandtech forums and once while I tried to use thedailyplate.com. Not sure of the reason, and I found it rather annoying, but the OS continued to run just fine and I was able to just re-open Opera and go back to the same page. Additionally, it seems that the Windows Mobile mail client crashed as well. Or, to be more precise, there was just no way of opening it. Clicking "inbox" or trying to get to my account all made it look like the phone was doing something... but the inbox never did open up. Again, I have no idea what caused it (perhaps the Opera crashes?), but a reboot fixed it and it has not happened again since.

I found a free program called GSync that, once I fussed enough with its crappy UI, let me sync my 4 google calendars with my phone. I'm sure the paid versions of these programs are far superior, but I'm trying not to hemmorage any more money :)

 

pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
7,419
22
81
Thanks very much for the updates. This is an excellent review.
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
A couple more updates:

Today, during a lull at work, I finally played around with the "media" panel. It is freaking awesome - by far, the best pre-installed panel. It is built for touch, has a very inuitive and slick interface, handles media very smoothly (ie, its much more responsive with photos than other panels) and has got to be one of the cleanest UI's I've seen running on windows mobile. I really wish they had designed the entire phone around this panel, with the only change needed being easy access to a "today" type panel with calendar, clock, etc. As it is, it's ideal for all your multimedia (photos, music, movies, radio), but you'll be switching to other panels for any sort of productivity. If I find some time, maybe I'll bust out visual studio and make the necessary changes myself, but with my current schedule, that doesn't seem likely.

Originally posted by: gorcorps
Any chance of seeing a photo and/or video sample to see the quality?

The only photos & videos I've taken so far were at a family event, so I'm not sure I want to post those. I may take more later and upload them, but in the meantime, the first post of this thread has links to a number of reviews of the X1, several of which include photos & videos taken with the device.
 

brikis98

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
7,253
8
0
Two more miscellaneous pieces of info:

Got the phone mounted in a cradle in my car, and I have to admit, it's an absolute joy to have. Music, audiobooks, phone, GPS... all accessible on a beautiful screen at the touch of a finger. Sweet.

Having said that, the "lip" around the the screen is fairly annoying. It makes pushing anything right at the edge - such as scroll bars, the close button, etc - quite difficult. This isn't an issue for parts of the UI that are built for touch, as all well designed interfaces tend to use larger buttons and support scrolling by swiping the finger anywhere on the screen. However, it's problematic for many of the native Windows Mobile components, which seemed to have been designed with a stylus in mind.
 

Aimster

Lifer
Jan 5, 2003
16,129
2
0
I saw this phone at the Sony store. It is not meant for surfing the web.

This screen is not big enough.
It is a lot smaller in person. It's just not wide enough. it's tall but not wide
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,953
1,144
126
Originally posted by: DLeRium
Originally posted by: Deeko
Originally posted by: brikis98

The N95 is a ~2 year old phone and when it released, it was also in the $800+ range. Moreover, the screen is smaller and lower resolution (2.6", 240x320), there is less RAM (and supposedly sluggish performance as a result), and as mentioned before, the lack of a keyboard is a big deal for me. Also, the CNET review says that the N95 doesn't have support for US networks - is that still the case?

To answer your questions here - there have been 4 major versions of the N95. The latest - and the one linked (N95-4) - has double the RAM of earlier incarnations, 8GB internal memory, and supports US networks. It also has a slightly larger (2.8") screen than the earlier version.

And guess what - when the N95 was released for $800, I would have said the same thing I'm saying about the X1. Not worth the money. Even though some of it's features, such as the camera, have yet to be equaled.

The N95 is still a killer. No phone in the US even comes close still, especially branded phones. If I could get an N95-4 I would. Oh and I have an N82 which trumped the N95 in all areas until the stupid 3G for US came out. Now i'm sad because I want 3G

No other phone comes close to what exactly?? Aside from the camera and a few tiny things this phone does nothing revolutionary at all. And one could argue while the camera is awesome for a cell phone, is not even as good as a $150 P&S camera. The N95 is probably the most exaggerated phone hype wise in existence. The fact it has true GPS is great, but the size of the screen makes the GPS close to worthless. Oh and the fact it costs money to use is weak sauce. There might be a "free" solution, but if you buy the phone, out of the box the GPS will cost you $10 a month. And from the few people I've spoken to, the GPS on it lags almost as badly as the rest of the OS. The phone has horrendous battery life, no QWERTY KB and is way too expensive for what you get. Oh and the phone's interface is ugly and lags like hell. It's also ungodly thick, feels shitty in your hands and is somewhere in the top 10 for ugly phones.

IMHO the n95 is borer line crap, if it wasn't for the Camera or GPS this phone would be a joke, and of those 2 things neither are worth dropping the extra coin the phone costs on.

What exactly is killer about the N95? If it was $500 with no contract it might be a worthy phone, but $750 for what you get? you got to be fucking kidding me. If Apple had made the N95 it would be panned as a "HUUUUGE POS!" I dunno how Nokia making it automatically makes it a great phone.
 

pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
7,419
22
81
We've highjacked this thread a bit from brikis98's very thorough review of his phone... What people are willing to pay for a phone is a very subjective thing - if you use it a lot, if you travel a lot, if you make a lot of money, a good phone is worth a lot more to one person than another person who just makes a call or two per day.

Originally posted by: QueBert
What exactly is killer about the N95? If it was $500 with no contract it might be a worthy phone, but $750 for what you get?
The N95-3 is selling without a contract at Amazon for $402 today. If you look around a bit, you can find it for $375. There's been an email from Amazon implying that they might do a Cyber Monday like deal on the N95-3 for $300.
http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Un...Warranty/dp/B000WR81ZM

His point was that when the N95-1 came out in Sept. of 2006, it was a really hot phone. At that time, there was obviously a lot of talk about the iPhone and what it was going to be, but the N95 was the phone to have in Q3 2006 - if you could find it. And it intro'd at $750, and people who travelled a lot were willing to pay it. Cell phone, movie player, GPS, WiFi, good web browsing, very good camera - in 9/2006 it was a pretty amazing phone, arguably THE amazing phone at the time.

I remember in summer of 2007 I was stuck in some airport somewhere and I was going standby because one of my connecting flights cancelled. My laptop was out of juice, every plug in the place was taken, and I wandered around and ended up sitting in some store somewhere where a guy showed me an N95 and let me play with it for an hour or two. I had time to kill and I pretty much did everything that phone could do. I was pretty impressed. At that point, the iPhone was out and I'd decided that that was the phone for me - once I figured out how to unlock it (I was planning on going the soldering route and was studying and chatting with George Hotz about how the hack would work). But I came VERY close that night in the airport to getting an N95 instead. I have a really hard time with your claim of "border line crap". In latter half of 2008, two years after it intro'd I agree that the N95 is not looking quite as cool as it did in early 2007, but it's still a very very nice phone that is one of the more open and accessible in terms of OS and software, nice camera, nice GPS. If they wanted $750 for it now, I'd think you have more of a point, but it's $400 unlocked at reputable online retailers. It's not a bad deal at all for what it is.