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Home » Mobile & GPS » Mobile Phone » Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 » Video

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 video review

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We had expected great things from the Xperia X1. In terms of the hardware it certainly lives up to the hype as it's a great looking phone and packed full of useful features. However, the hardware is really hamstrung by the phone's operating system and the X Panel interface that Sony Ericsson has added is over the top. At the end of the day when you pay a premium price (this is an expensive handset after all) you expect premium performance and the Xperia simply doesn't deliver that premium experience on the software side. Read full review

Overall

7/10

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Niall Magennis

By Niall Magennis
Reviewed 14 January 2009
Updated 26 May 2011

Price as reviewed

free/subscription

  • Review
    • 1: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1
    • 2: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1
    • 3: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1
  • Video Review
  • User Reviews
  • Comments
  • 4 Photos
  • Mobile Deals
  • Reviewed by Niall Magennis
  • 14 January 2009
Read the full Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 review
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Awards

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 details

Performance
6/10
Value
6/10
Features
8/10
Design
8/10
Overall
7/10

Price as reviewed

free/subscription

Manufacturer

Sony Ericsson

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Ahlan

1:27 AM on 14 January, 2009

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I don't understand why you gave 8 for the design, and 8 for the features.


i don't own this Smartphone, but my colleague has a Xperia X1, and i played with a lot, as a "hardware" its better then the iphone in my opinion, but the bad thing about it is the software(windows mobile) i think mac software are better, price is a bit high.





and the display is 10x better then all of those top smartphone.





my sores are:





Design: 10/10





Features: 9/10





Performance: 8/10





Value: 8/10





Overall: 8.75/10








I hope next time Sony will use Google Android insted of windows mobile.








BTW sorry foe my bad English, am not from UK and English is not my main language.



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Gordon394

1:41 AM on 14 January, 2009

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@Ahlan - each to their own. I personally find this handset horribly dated and horrendously overpriced. Niall was kind in his scoring in my opinion.

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GavinHamer

1:59 AM on 14 January, 2009

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Seemed like a fair review to me. I own this phone and would give it 8/10, because I specifically want the features it offers (keyboard, high-res) and am prepared for a bit of finger drumming now and then.





The X-Panels are not great. However, there is a pretty sweet one for Facebook though (free download), which shows what could be done. On the version of the Xperia X1 that I received from Vodafone, the variant of SPB Mobile Shell was pre-installed. This is a very nifty "desktop", which allows me to have easy access to a lot of things. Without it, the phone would be much less useful or usable in my opinion.





In fact, I think I'll bore you with the full list of what's on my phone's desktop (excluding the top bar), because you're not really that busy anyway: time, alarm indicator, message indicator, missed call indicator, flight mode switch, wifi switch, bluetooth switch, phone switch, speaker/vibrate/silent toggle, 4 rss feeds title & first line (drill to read without launching browser), 15 application shortcut icons, and 5 instant call photo icons. The application shortcuts are: Phone (always handy), Contacts (using iContact UI), Weather (using Forecast Daily), Windows Media Player, Opera Mobile (pre-installed), Messaging, Calendar, Tasks, Calculator (using YaRPMcalc), Iris Browser (web-kit based), File Explorer, Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, Google Maps, Live Search. I didn't find the Wayfinder sat-nav software useful enough to include on there, but there is a free trial of it available and it might work better in cities. Still, I would happily ditch it for Android given the option.





Using TCPMP, you can play downloaded torrent video files directly on the phone and it's normally smooth. It won't play HDTV downloads though, the processor can't handle scaling that many pixels. Adding a 16GB microSD card in there will help for media, and it's great to have that 3.5mm headphone jack.





I'm not sure the notification lights on the side of the unit were mentioned, but they are pretty lame and unlikely to catch your attention anyway. The built-in speaker and the FM tuner are also poor. The shutter delay on the camera is an eternity, but the resulting photos are reasonable by mobile phone standards, and can be directly uploaded to Facebook using the Facebook Panel.

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Alex.rar

7:09 AM on 14 January, 2009

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I own this phone and it is great - I bought Tom Tom 7 and use it in my car has a proper Tom Tom using the GPS - its great!





**Also there is a X1 panel competition going on that ends on janurary 30th so after that hopefully there will be loads more new panels and also a patch is due and since it has been taking a while i know its going to include a lot.





i played a video on my X1 and the same video on my Creative Zen (which has 6.7 million colours) yet the V1 has a much better and nicer picture and a fuller colour!








the only thing i dont like is that there is no offical store for windows mobile applicatons like the app store - but i know microsoft are working on one - cant remember the name though

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simonm

8:59 AM on 14 January, 2009

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I have an X1, and was initially indifferent to the panels, but the 'Sony Ericsson Panel' is highly configurable, and with a little customization I found it extremely useful. From the Options dialog for this panel, you can mix and match the usual time/weather/calendar/tasks/e-mail notifications plus RSS feeds of your choice, speed dials, and quick launch buttons for documents and programs. You can also have multiple instances of this panel (I have a second with additional RSS feeds I like to track).





Once I'd configured this panel I bit, I thought it was the best user experience of any Windows Mobile device I'd used.





Having owned an X1 for a couple of months, my only real reservation is that its signal strength seems weaker than previous phones I've owned.

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Frank

11:40 AM on 15 January, 2009

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Well reviewed, this phone was of interest to me but T.Mobile are finally to release the MDA Vario 1V this week, any danger you may be reviewing that phone, , , , soonish?

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OliverLevett

4:45 PM on 15 January, 2009

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The Touch Pro is the same as the Vario IV (bar T-Mobiles usual "customisation"), and was reviewed here http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-devices/review/2008/08/26/HTC-Touch-Pro/p1





What interests me is that the X1 and Touch Pro are essentially the same device (different screen, and a different case) yet the Touch Pro gets 10/10 for features, and this gets 8/10, and the least functional device available (the iPhone) gets 9/10? Seems a fairly random allocation of scores...





Panels is a far less in depth UI change than TouchFlo or Manila, but it has the advantage that you can develop for it without having to reverse engineer the whole thing.





Also, processor clock speed is pretty meaningless, as what matters is what can be done in each of those clock cycles. The MSM72XX chipsets have hardware 3D acceleration that is used in Manila (HTC own brand devices), but is less heavily used in the X1.

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Ahlan

11:53 PM on 16 January, 2009

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@Oliver,





"you said: The X1 and Touch Pro are essentially the same device (different screen, and a different case) yet the Touch Pro gets 10/10 for features, and this gets 8/10, and the least functional device available (the iPhone) gets 9/10? Seems a fairly random allocation of scores..."





WELL SAID MATE, i totally agree with you.





maybe they gave it a lower score cause it has a SONY logo on it?

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Stu

12:21 AM on 18 January, 2009

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I have one critisism of this review, you dismiss WinMob as a problem and don't even seem to consider some of it's merits. The OS is clunky and mismatched, but it's far more feature packed than Symbian and the iPhone OS. Having used all three for a fair amount of time (Symbian for years, iPhone for a few months and WinMob for about 6 weeks now) i'd have to say that Symbian is probably my favourite (best balance of features, stability and useability).





I'm not saying WinMob should be rated as a good OS (it isn't) but if you can reskin it with something like SBP or Touchflo 3D then it'll do the job. After using WM 6.1 and Windows 7 i really can't wait to see what Microsoft are going to churn out for WM7. There's so much potential in the Windows Mobile platform, and with Microsoft pushing seamless connectivity at the moment it could be really good :)





As for the phone, i love it :D I went from an E90 to this, and although the keyboard is NOWHERE near as good (take note Sony Ericsson) the phone itelf is incredible. It's the size of the device more than anything, they've crammed a decent sized touch screen and a fully QWERTY keyboard in to a shell that's perfectly normal in size. I've also got no problem with resistive touch screens, i'd prefer the option of a stylus to better finger accuracy.





On a funny side-note my Mum asked to borrow a stylus off me the other day because she was struggling with finger control on the iPod Touch. It does make me wonder if finger control really is all it's cracked up to be, i know i had some trouble too.

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NigelCraig1

1:39 AM on 26 January, 2009

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I received my X1 two days ago and unfortuanetly it did not arrive with the preloaded google maps so its on its way back to o2 for an exchange!! Here's the big worry i found when resetting it back to factory settings; click settings,click the clear storage icon,tap-in 1,2,3,4 click OK, this resets /wipes everything, including resetting your Sim card and memory card info'!! No need for a code etc. Think how easy anyone could reset your phone and wipe it clean!!!I now need to ring o2 for the factory Sim card codes so as not to block my Sim card!! Surly a pda/smart-phone should be a little harder to reset????

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