“…why the developer thought it would be a good idea for me to stick my shiny new phone between my wife's legs is beyond me...”
The first thing you notice about Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10, right after its sleek and sexy glossy body, bright screen, 8 megapixel camera and beautiful Timescape interface, is how much it uses the battery.
So let's get the bad news out of the way first: Sony Ericsson boast that this phone can achieve up to 425 hours from the battery in standby mode. This is, quite frankly, a blatant lie.
I timed mine, switching it on in the morning from a full charge and leaving it alone all day. After thirteen hours and three minutes, the battery was dead.
Both Sony Ericsson and Vodafone, my mobile provider, told me that I could extend the battery life by switching off such features as GPS and Wi-Fi, but as the GPS was already off and my phone wasn't in range of a wireless network, such advice seemed redundant. Not to mention that if I didn't want to have such facilities as GPS and Wi-Fi, I wouldn't have bothered buying the phone in the first place.
Switching them off, then, seems kind of pointless.
Still, the iPhone fares no better when it comes to battery life, and as the X10 is aiming squarely at the same market place we can assume there are no victors on either side in the battery argument.
So what is the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10? In short, it's Sony Ericsson's first foray in to the Android market place. Android being Google's smartphone operating system to challenge the iPhone, and it does this very well indeed.
Certainly, Apple's 'Jesus Phone' has got a big chunk of this particular market place at the moment, but Google's clever move has been to release Android as an operating platform to any manufacturer or developer who wants to play with it, and let them put it on to any device they wish. Apple, on the other hand, keep their OS strictly to themselves and rigorously check every app written for the device before releasing it to their market.
As a result there are many more manufacturers putting Android on to their top-of-the-line mobile phones and, in the US, Android phones have started to outsell the iPhone this year.
The other big advantage of Android is that it can run more than one application simultaneously, whereas the current crop of iPhones can't. This means you can have instant messaging and e-mail applications open whilst listening to your favourite music and browsing the web.
Like Apple's phone, there is a Market place where applications - or 'apps' - can be downloaded, and apps for just about everything you'd ever desire can be put on your phone. The Android market is still not as populated as Apple's, but it's growing by the day and a plethora of free and pay-for apps ranging from games to office applications and everything mundane in between can generally be found. There's even one that turns my new Sony Ericsson in to a vibrator, though why the developer thought it would be a good idea for me to stick my shiny new phone between my wife's legs is beyond me...
The other advantage of Android is that each developer can 'skin' their own interface, essentially making the phone look bespoke to their brand, whilst still taking advantage of Google's slick mobile operating system.
Sony Ericsson have done this extremely well, focusing heavily on the social networking market space and squarely marketing this phone at Twitter and Facebook addicts. Their Timescape interface brings feeds from your social networking accounts in to one simple, scrolling page that allows you to see all updates from your contacts with the flick of a finger on the screen. If one grabs your attention, simply touch that particular image and it will bring up the relevant account with all details.
Timescape also allows you to link all your social networking feeds with your contacts list. This takes a little time to do, but it's worth doing. Each time you scroll through your contacts you'll see their latest Facebook or Twitter updates without having to open your browser.
Mediascape is Sony Ericsson's music player, photo and video library all rolled in to one. It makes selecting your music, pictures and videos easy and allows you to display slideshows to your friends of your latest holiday snaps. It even connects to Facebook and Picasa and allows you to show off photographs you've got stored online, too.
The 8 megapixel camera is good, with a variety of digital camera options including face recognition, smile detection and image stabiliser all helping provide good quality images - excellent for a phone but even with eight megapixels the images still lack some depth. The 16x digital zoom is poor, with even the mildest zoom applied leaving the images pixelated, and the unprotected lens on the back of the camera is easy to smudge with your finger when taking the phone from your pocket.
The phone comes with a photolight but, as this device is being shipped with version 1.6 of Android, it doesn't act as a flash. Sony and Vodafone have both advised me that when they release the upgrade to version 2.0+ of Android this flaw will be rectified. I wait with baited breath...
Being a Google device it communicates with all of Google's online services seamlessly so if, like me, you're already a Googlephile, setting the phone up is a doddle. I simply switched it on for the first time, gave it my Gmail login details, and within two minutes my contact list was populated with all my e-mail addresses and telephone numbers stored online.
This phone does rely heavily on being connected to the Internet and so you must make sure you've got an unlimited data contract with your mobile provider. Failure to do so will result in some spectacularly expensive bills! Its insistence on constantly updating you with e-mail and social media feeds will also remind you of how much junk your life receives throughout the day. After a couple of days use it left me wishing for the 1980s, my collection of LP records and having to knock on the door of my mates' houses in order to find out what they were up to.
As I approach my forties, however, I do find myself having a particular aversion to touchscreen keyboards. I like to feel something click under my finger tips and the X10's onscreen keyboard has been a constant thorn in my side as I fumble my way from one letter to another. The predictive text input onscreen, however, is excellent and often spots my errors and suggests corrections. After two months of use I have started to get used to it and can now type a text or e-mail with relative ease, although if I'm not concentrating I can end up writing utter rubbish.
One huge plus that I do love on the X10, however, is Google Maps. Coupled with Google's recently launched Navigation service, the device now acts as a full Satellite Navigation solution in the car, with better results than even the industry-leading Tom Tom has managed to achieve.
Despite some of the flaws, however, I love the X10 overall. The interface is shiny, bright and easy to read and it means that when I'm out-and-about I'm in constant contact with my friends and my business without having to lug my heavy Compaq laptop about, whilst simultaneously providing me with entertainment and a good camera for those opportune family-snap moments.
If you can get used to the constant raping of the battery - I recommend buying several USB-based charging leads to dot about the home and office - and can forgive some of the weaknesses the camera shouldn't have, this makes an excellent everyday phone and a clear alternative to the Apple iPhone.
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