Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
When the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 first leaked to the online mobile community, any marketing expert can already sense the demand taking shape from the anticipation generated by people in the online mobile forums. And when it was finally announced in November last year, that demand reached fever highs and you know you have a successful product in your hands.
It was no different when the PS3 was announced. But just like the PS3, the X10 got delayed and is now in danger of suffering the same lackluster reception the PS3 had when it finally launched more than a year after it was announced.
The X10 is now almost 4 months old on paper after its announcement. It missed the holidays, the New Year, the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s. There’s not that much festive occasion between now and the end of the quarter to give anyone an excuse to buy the X10 at the speculated price of €600 – one of the highest for a smartphone. But still, it’s too early to tell and the leading Japanese mobile phone maker has 4-5 weeks before the 1st quarter of the year ends.
Taking Stock Once More
The Sony Ericsson website has the X10 prominently featured and that should be a hint that it’s forthcoming pretty soon. The recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona showed a couple of X10 derivatives – the Mini and the QWERTY slider MiniPro which are watered-down versions. But if anything, these new handsets prove the X10 could be out before the 2nd quarter release of these derivatives. It may be worth refreshing our memories of what the X10 promises.
What comes to mind immediately is that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is the first Android smartphone from Sony Ericsson, using the most powerful 1 GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon CPU that is now getting into a number of Android smartphone like the Acer Liquid and the upcoming HTC Desire revealed at the MWC.
There’s just this issue of an older Android 1.6 sticking out like a sore thumb when, after all the delays, the X10 could be using the newer 2.0/2.1 Éclair version its rivals in its class already use. We figure the Rachel UI renamed the UX (User eXperience) can’t be ported into the new Éclair and Sony is standing firm on the older version. At any rate, the Android world reserve its comment until it sees what the UX-tweaked Android has to offer.
The immediate stand out is its gorgeous display that remains unchallenged as the largest for an Android handset. It’s a 4-inch WideVGA capacitive touchscreen with a scratch-resistant coating as well as a gravity accelerometer.
Only the Motorola Droid/Milestone comes close at 3.7 inches and also the upcoming HTC Desire. Its imaging has few equals and there are only few with 12 megapixel cameras and high definition 720 video recording to take it down.
Otherwise, its 8-megapixel autofocus/touchfocus camera with LED flash, image stabilization, face/smile detection, 8x digital zoom, red-eye reduction, WVGA video recording at 30fps with video light, and geo-tagging from its GPS receiver are collectively unparalleled among camera smartphones in any class or price point.
