Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 – Spacious virtual keyboard
This phone is from AT&T service and it does improve on a lot of problems that I first found on the original X10. The biggest one is that the QWERTY keyboard now works in the landscape mode so you can now comfortably type long messages on the phone. The screen too is big enough and hence you get a roomy keyboard to work around with. I bitterly missed this feature in the original X10. Typing in standard portrait keyboard can be quite challenging.
Apart from that, the price of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is also a lot less than its predecessor. This handset is yours for $149 but you have to sign a service agreement with AT&T, the service provider. The original X10 costed a hefty $700 which would certainly make a big hole in your pocket. I am not saying that this handset is now perfect. I still have a couple of complaints. This handset is running on Android 1.6 which is seriously outdated. The latest version of Android is 2.2 but there are a few versions coming out with 2.0 and 2.1. So I think this is a bit unforgivable.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 also has the Timescape application which is similar to the one seen in MotoBlur. It takes all your e-mails, Facebook status updates, Tweets, text and multimedia messages, and then roll them into one steady stream for quick reference. It resembles a deck of cards, you have to move your finger over the screen in order to scroll through it. The application looks really funky and I liked it. I also these applications since they give you everything on your fingertip. But in case of Timescape, things got overwhelming because there was so much information crammed and hence I had a difficult time finding the things that I want. On the bright side, the screen is really big so you will be able to see a lot of information at a time. The big screen also comes in handy while typing long messages. The buttons get really spacious and hence there are fewer mishits.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 gives you three home screens for storing your widgets and short cut icons. High end smartphones have five home screens but I am not complaining here since three screens are enough. For accessing these screens, you have to flick your finger, just like most smartphones.
The display of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 only supports 65k colors which is a bit low considering the technology that other smartphones are using. Things on the phone look OK but they could have been better. The videos look crisp and the text too is easily readable.
3.5 mm headphones jack is located above the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and this lets you plug in any standard headphone set in to the device. I also liked its location, you can easily out the phone in your pocket and the wire won’t tangle at all. There are phones which have headphone ports on the sides or on the bottom. This makes things a bit difficult.
