Windows Mobile has always been a powerful but clunky OS, but recently we’ve seen manufacturer efforts to clean it up and make it more user-friendly. Sony Ericsson has thus far stayed out of the WinMo realm, but with the Xperia X1 they are making a splash on both fronts. They have developed a new panel interface to match the X1’s svelte design. It has the rich feature set you’d expect from a high-end device, with many connectivity options and a 480x800 high resolution display.

Design

The X1 is a very well designed device, with a large WVGA display and full QWERTY keyboard. It is constructed of brushed metal which leads to a very hefty weight of 5.1oz. It comes in both silver and black, our review unit was silver but we prefer the black finish personally. It is strikingly narrow, especially when compared to a similar device like the Touch Pro.

The narrowness leads to a good in-hand feel, though it is definitely on the heavy side. Still, the build quality is top notch and we are quite impressed with the hardware. The screen slides to the right to reveal a four row QWERTY, and it slides at an arc so that it is tilted slightly upwards when opened. The slide mechanism is fantastically smooth; it offers the perfect balance of resistance and sprint and sliding it is actually a pleasure.

The WVGA (480x800) screen is gorgeous, and measures in at 3.0”. Like all other Windows Mobile devices it is only 65K colors, but the increased pixel density mostly makes up for that. As you’d expect from such a high resolution panel videos looked great. It is a resistive touchscreen, and therefore can be used with a stylus or other non-bare finger object, and is very responsive.

The navigation keys sit below the display, and in true Sony fashion much attention has been paid to the styling. There is a square directional pad, and to either side triangular keys that come together to form an X. The soft keys are silver slivers, but raised so they are easy to press. The other keys - Send and Panel to the left and OK and End to the right- are a bit small but have good travel and a slight click so you know when they have been activated. In addition to being clickable, center of the d-pad is also touch sensitive and you can move up/down and left/right by swiping your finger across it. It doesn’t work within every application, and it’s easier to use side-to-side, but we liked the added navigation option.

At the top of the display is the earpiece cutout, with a miniscule forward facing VGA camera and light sensor integrated into this housing on either side. On the rear of the phone is a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash to the right/top. Below it the stylus tucks into the corner, though a bit too tightly for our tastes. Tight is good so that it does not get lost, but it takes too much effort to pull it out and we prefer HTC’s magnetic solution. The battery door has no mechanical latch, and we did have some issues getting it to seat properly.

The left side of the phone has a miniUSB port as well the single speaker at the bottom corner. On the right you have a volume rocker at the top and camera key at the bottom. The top houses the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack and the microphone is on the bottom. The side keys are well integrated into the frame and easy enough to press, though the volume rocker could have been longer. The phone has an illumination effect for certain events, and the multi-colored LEDs are integrated to the side housing.

The QWERTY keyboard is pretty darn good, but the keys are a bit too small for us. For those with smaller hands the X1 will be excellent, but for those with big mitts you might find yourself slightly frustrated. The spacing between the keys is very good, and like the G1 the keys are staggered. We would have liked to see a bit more travel in the keys; they feel soft, and while we were relatively accurate it wasn’t perfect. Even though the keyboards are fairly different, the X1 has a similar feel to the Touch Pro. Being only four rows, numbers do not get their own keys. Unlike most other devices with a traditional layout among the top row or left side alignment, Sony has chosen to move the numbers to the right side and arrange them more like the HTC TyTN II.

Sony Ericsson is obviously going for the general consumer with the X1, and we think they have put together a very good design for it. The size is very good, and the screen excellent for multimedia applications. The narrowness makes it easier to hold, although it could be lighter. Fashion was an obvious influence in the design of the X1, and even the silver version is chic. The build quality is overall wonderful, and we are generally pleased with the design of the X1.

Display

Someone might ask how come Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 gets the better treatment than the Touch Pro in terms of screen size as they have one and the same manufacturer, but let's not forget HTC have the Touch HD already and can afford to show some generosity to the competition. A 3-inch diagonal accommodating 800 x 480 pixels (yep, Touch HD again) is at this point the ultimate in full-QWERTY PocketPCs. The 2.8" VGA display of HTC Touch Pro should feel quite threatened as the XPERIA outdoes it in both size and resolution.

The image quality is great although someone would make a case of the XPERIA's 65K-color support "only". But really, there aren't that many cases when the difference between 65K and 16M colors is visible to the naked eye. The XPERIA X1 is a pleasure to look at and handle in the dark, with its strong and even backlighting and bright display. However, going outside on a bright sunny day you're in for a serious problem. The X1 has the same weakness as most other WinMo phones out there - poor sunlight legibility. The fingerprint smudges on the screen don't help things either.

The 3" display is sunk a millimeter from the surrounding surface and this solution has both its pros and cons. Not only does it offer some degree of protection, it also facilitates operating with the stylus around the edges - exiting applications, hitting the battery indicator, wireless network icon or the sideways scrolls. However if you prefer to use your fingers you are in for quite a hard time. Icons, start menu and scroll bars are tiny and stylus skeptics (like us) will need either long nails or strong nerves to get to them.

This of course also has much to do with the high screen resolution. We've got to say, that HTC have done a far better job of scaling the UI of the Touch HD to make it thumb-friendly. The touchscreen responsiveness is better than the Samsung Omnia's but nowhere near the iPhone standards.

Interface

Running Windows Mobile 6.1 professional, the X1 is similar to other WinMo devices. The homescreen is standard and out of the box simply has the date and time plugin, along with messaging, tasks and calendar.

Where the X1 differentiates itself is the panel interface Sony Ericsson has created. A mix between an application launcher and widgets, the user can have up to nine panels that offer quick access to anything from the homescreen to Facebook to Dashwire to pictures and music. Google and Windows Live both have panels for quick web search and access to your Google and Live accounts. Some panels, such as the Sony Ericsson panel, are customizable and allow the user to tweak the view and content. It basically is a today panel, and the user can add and view things like RSS feeds, weather, calendar events and more. The Media Xperience panel gives the user access to all their media in a Playstation 3 themed layout.

The panel launcher page simply has icons for the panels, they do not actually update, say, if you receive an email or other notification.  When you launch the panel it brings a static picture of the panel to the foreground before cutting to the live panel.  You can only have one panel running at time; to return to the panel overview page simply hit the Panel button.  A minor annoyance is that the standard Windows Mobile homescreen is one of the panels, we much would have preferred a home button that automatically takes you there rather than kicking back to the panel interface and then having to launch it.

We enjoy the panel interface, but don’t think it is anything groundbreaking. Some of the panels are more useful than others; the Facebook panel, for instance, is fantastic, whereas the Google panel is basically a search bar with bookmark shortcuts to Gmail and other Google products. It is nowhere near as encompassing as TouchFLO 3D, which we like better. We would have instead preferred to see the panels incorporated into a custom UI, like HTC has done with their weather and music tabs. Still, it is slick and we wouldn’t mind seeing some of the panels incorporated into TF3D. Developers, get on it!

Phonebook and Organizer

As a WM Professional device the X1 is as full-featured as it gets. It of course syncs with Outlook, so managing contacts and calendar is simple. Being a GSM phone, when a new contact is added the user is given the option to add it as a SIM or Outlook contact. Only the latter will sync with Outlook when the phone is paired with a computer. There is nothing new with the X1; it runs the standard Windows Mobile Calendar and Contacts application. Other PIM applications are also exactly the same as before, such as Notes, Tasks, Calculator and Clock.

A press of the send key brings up both call history and the dialpad. Its design language matches the X1, but the layout is very similar to the Touch Diamond. Sony has added four onscreen keys: Send, Call History, Contacts and Favorites, which sit above the dialpad and below the call history. The in-call screen is also similar in function to HTC devices, though the design is very different. There are two rows of three icons: Speaker, Mute, and Hold atop Notes, Contacts and Dialpad. Along the bottom is a large end button.
There is no voice dialing software on the X1, which is a shame.

Music and Videos

The XPERIA X1 comes with the standard Windows Media Player, which clearly underperforms. It only manages mp4 and 3gp and for DivX/XviD you will need a third party application. The arc slider does give the display a bit of tilt, but hardly enough to make a great difference for watching videos. The Windows Media player doesn't do too well in the music playing department either. The interface is stylus oriented. Tracks and videos are handled much like in the desktop version.

Again, the Media Xperience panel is the way to go. It launches an interface identical to the Media center found on the Sony Ericsson feature phones with a pinch of touch optimization. And as you probably know if you have been keeping track of our recent reviews we really do like this media gallery. For DivX and XviD palyback we resorted to the well-known Core player. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 pleasantly surprised us here by being able to seamlessly play videos at a bit rate of up to 1.46Mb/s. While going any further than this is sure to result in skipped frames, this is a more than good achievement.

In comparison, the HTC Touch HD, which has the same display resolution, was only able to handle up to 1.2 Mb/s. The XPERIA result is in fact quite close to the HTC Touch Pro but the latter has a smaller screen with 25% less pixels. So, watching videos is surely another point won for XPERIA X1 over the HTC Touch Pro.

Camera

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 is equipped with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. It also has a LED flash that is supposed to assist night photography but as usually its power is inadequate for producing a decent photo. On the positive side it can also be used as a video light unlike its xenon siblings. Having already checked out the camera performance our advice for you is not to set your expectations about it too high.

There are two groups of overlaying controls. In the upper left corner there are indicators for "remaining" images/minutes of video, resolution and the location of saved photos. In video mode there is also an indication of whether the microphone is on. The other group is a vertical toolbar on the right side that allows you to switch between modes - photo, video and playback.

When holding the phone in your right hand (as you will most likely do since the shutter is on the right) you can single-handedly toggle camera modes with your thumb. To work with the settings menu though you would need both hands but the layout of touchscreen controls is quite ergonomic. Navigating with the track pad is almost as easy.

At the bottom is the Settings button. Pressing it reveals another vertical bar, this time on the left. It has four buttons - Scenes, Focus, Flash and Shoot mode. The appearance of each of those four buttons changes any time you select a specific setting, so you know which one is being used. These however are the basic settings. Another press on the settings button will bring up the advanced options. You can change resolution, color effects etc. This menu is not so thumb-friendly but you don't necessarily need the stylus, the track pad does just fine.

Focusing is done by half pressing the shutter key. If touch focus is enabled you can move the focus point by touching any part of the screen with your bare finger.

The image quality of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 isn't quite as impressive as we hoped. The phone fails to resolve enough detail in photos and dynamic range seems too low even in phone terms. As a result, highlight clipping is quite a common sight on the photos produced by the handset. Noise levels are also quite high and probably you should've got the idea by now that this isn't the best camera on a mobile phone we have seen.

At least the colors are rather precise on most occasions and if you steer clear of scenes that are too challenging for the dynamic range, things could look pretty decent.

At least the video recording capabilities of the XPERIA X1 seem more promising than the still camera. VGA resolution at 30 fps sounds really sweet and is quite adequate for almost any purpose you can think of. In fact, this may as well be the first PocketPC to offer that kind of video recording.

However, the image quality is not as pleasing as it sounds - the XPERIA X1 video falls short of what some other VGA recording phones can offer. Most surprisingly our retail XPERIA X1 records in the inferior 3gp format.

Performance

Voice quality was excellent on both sides of the call. Callers rated us at a 9.25, saying that there was a slight cavernous quality but overall our voice came through strong and clear. On our end they sounded just as good, and we were even able to tell they were in a large, empty room by the echo. When they moved into a smaller room it went away. The X1 is one of the better sounding phones we have ever tested.

Battery life is equally excellent. It is rated at an astounding 10 hours of talk time, with 13 days of standby. The battery can even handle 3.1 hours of video calling, which we were sadly unable to test here in the States.

Conclusion

All in all we have to give the Xperia X1 high marks, especially for Sony Ericsson’s first attempt at a Windows Mobile device. Having HTC by your side definitely helps, but we like Sony’s innovative panel interface even if it isn’t quite as good as TouchFLO 3D. The screen is downright gorgeous, and the keyboard one of the better ones we’ve used. There is room for improvement though, and we eagerly await the X2.