Posted by Mia in 
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 can be called one of the most expected communicators of this season. The firstling on the platform of Windows Mobile from the Swedish-Japanese alliance claims to be a device with an exclusive design, maximum functionality and high performance. The best of the best. The proof of this is the fact that Chinese craftsmen have begun to flood the world market with all kinds of clones of Sony Ericsson X1 – a sign that the device of Sony Ericsson has turned to be truly worthy attention.
Design
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 – is a horizontal QWERTY-slider of very strict and regular forms. For its size (but not the design!), it looks more like a simple phone than a communicator: 111 x 53 x 17 mm/158 g.
The facets of Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 have a barely noticeable rounding, highlighting the elegance of the new model. In the main, the body is made of rugged metal nice for the touch, black outside and silver inside – it is included in the interior design and even the keyboard keys are also made from it.
The main control unit beyond the display is designed originally. Eight triangular buttons are folded into two squares, and two navigation buttons surround the central confirmation button on top and bottom.
That very key has a surprise. It has a touch surface, which will position the cursor in the same way as it is implemented in an Apple iPhone – you just need to hold your finger on the button in one direction or another. You get used to working with the panel at once – the movements of the cursor are measured and it does not “escape” more than you want. Two ways to control – this is the first strong point of the X1.
All other elements, located on the side faces, are standard for most communicators. Thus, at the right end are the buttons of volume adjustment and the activation of the built-in camera.
The right side bears the interface port miniUSB for charging the battery and connecting the device to your computer. In the upper part are the power button, a separate jack for connecting headphones with a minijack of 3,5 mm, and a case for the stylus.
The latter has a metal case, is well-made and is of a very high quality, but because of the too small diameters it is inconvenient to work with – constantly sneaks out of the hands.
QWERTY-keyboard
The second zest of the X1 (the first is the sensory management) is the QWERTY-keyboard, or rather its implementation. Firstly, the halves are made with a curve – the keyboard is concave and the lid is deflected.
It does not give an additional convenience to the work, but looks stylish and expensive. It is disappointing that the progress of the mechanism is very soft – shell halves are displaced relatively to each other even from the slightest pressing, although the slider does not open. When taking the device in your hand, it slides apart giving an unpleasant feeling. The second key feature is that it has relatively large buttons with big gaps between them. This came to be due to the fact that the producer was confined to the installation of only 42 buttons in four rows – the figures will have to be typed in the Fn register.All the buttons have a clear, but a little tight turn. For typing small text messages and even texts the keyboard fits perfectly, although it requires adaptation.
Filling and productivity
The communicator is built on a Qualcomm 7200A platform, the processor clock speed is 528 MHz. For now, this speed is enough for working with any applications and tasks. A 512 MB flash-memory and 256 MB of RAM are on board – capacities are quite corresponding to modern realities. More than half of the flash-memory (281.33 MB) is used for data storage. We can confidently say that with such amount of memory and such functionality of the processor the owner of the X1 can safely install on any application it – the main condition is that they are compatible with Windows Mobile 6.1 which administers the communicator.
The performance was tested using the package Spb Benchmark 1.6. For comparison there are the results obtained earlier for the Glofiish X900 communicator and HTC TyTN II.
The backlog from Glofiish X900 in the graphical test is expected due to the fact that the X1 has a non-standard widescreen display, the signal processing of which requires considerably more time. To find out which are the video capabilities, we tested the communicator with another well-known benchmark CorePlayer, and for this purpose a test video of the format 640 x 480 with bit rate 759 Kbps was played.
The ideal is considered to be the result of more than 100%. Our obtained results of 73.56% showed that the playing was accompanied with a loss of shots, although it was not noticeable for an eye. That is, this type of video formats is actually the limit for comfortable viewing. If you want to watch movies in a 800 x 480format size, you will have to reduce the bite rate.
Display
The large touch screen with a diagonal of 3 and resolution of 800h480 points, larger than in most communicators, is the third, perhaps the most important highlight of the new item. Due to the relatively small width it is virtually impossible to distinguish the individual points on the display. The clarity and color of the display are visible at the very first acquaintance with the Communicator.
In addition, it boasts of a wide range of brightness, maximum possible angles of view and very fast response, which could not be better suited for viewing movies and photos.
The only negative is that not all third-party developers will want to work with a non-standard resolution. But it can be safely recommended for reading. The well-known “reader” HaaliReader is easily adjusted to the non-standard resolution and allowed to enjoy a useful pastime, especially since the display of the X1, allows to read even the most minor texts quite easily.
Camera
3.2 MP, Autofocus, LED flash are typical of most modern cameras of smart phones. And the X1 is not an exception. The Russian interface of the camera is traditionally simple and easy to follow even for the beginner.
Settings in the main page are also standard, except for one – shooting in a wide format is fitting the display. At first sight, it is an interesting feature. In fact, there is little sense in it – the camera simply cuts the picture above and below. For example, a frame with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 would be cut off to 2048 x 1280. Furthermore, for a night shooting in automatic mode, the camera exposes a very long shutter speed. On the one hand, dark images are obtained lighter, but on the other – most of them are lubricated because of shaking hands. For example, the next frame is done in almost total darkness – other mobile cameras could not shoot it at that time of day.
And this is the result of shaking hands – it was not possible to obtain clear images despite adequate street lighting.
If the device is placed on any fixed object, as was done when taking the next frame, the night images of city streets will be no worse than during the day.
The camera operates well when shooting in daylight, as well as in artificial light.
Communication capabilities and FM-radio
The X1 is equipped with a full set of communication modules: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz with support for data transmission via GPRS / EDGE, and HSPA 900/1900/2100 MHz. For video conferencing in 3G the VGA-camera, which is located above the display, is used.
