I just receive my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1i yesterday. I could barely contain my excitement! I won’t dig into the specs too much, but if you want to get a closer look, click here. Unboxing isn’t anything like the iPhone experience, no wows or big surprises really. The phone, when first seen was not as striking as i’ve seen on the ‘net. It felt really light when I first removed it, about the same weight as my 5800XM, but then I realized that the battery wasn’t in place yet. However, after installing the battery, it actually felt pretty good, yeah, it’s got weight, but it’s not a beast, it’s solid and evenly distributed. Ok, so powering it on, i’ve had WiMo Pro once before and a few WiMo Smartphones, I didn’t remember the boot taking so long in the past. The iPhone, with FW2 was alot faster. In realtime, it takes maybe 1-2 minutes to start. If you’re gonna be a WiMo user, you need patience. So, i’ve only had it 1 day, here’s my initial impressions.
What I like:
It’s a looker (the longer you have it, the better it looks)
Screen is absolutely stunning (color, res, the best viewing angles i’ve ever seen)
Panels (Very cool. They’re like apps & home screens. There’s alot of potential here)
Keyboard (take a little bit getting used to, but is really nice, the slider feels great too)
Customization (it’s WiMo, there’s thousands of apps available to tweak your device)
HTML email (plain text is so 2007)
Touch control can range better than average
GPS (very fast start, obviously great with a-gps enabled)
3.5MM headphone jack (thank you! no more adapters!)
What I don’t like:
Volume keys (nearly impossible to use)
No home button! (while some might feel it isn’t needed, it would be useful in other panels)
Default Virtual keyboard is terrible (it’s way too small, install a new one)
Optical mouse (if it were bigger, it might be useful)
Mono loud speaker (while it has some push to it, you can’t use it to listen to music)
No proximity sensory
No accelerometer
Not “all”" apps are optimized for the WVGA screen
Reserved judgment:
Music player
Camera
Video recorder
Charging via USB
While viewing and comparing my 5800 to the Xperia, you can definitely see where each was going. The X1 was targeted as a high-end business device, hence the $800+ initial price tag, while the 5800 was targeted as a “first smartphone”, music device. I believe that SE succeeded in about 90% of what they set out for and I find refreshing to see Sony go against status quo and push and help move the stagnant smartphone arena.
|D
