A welcome surprise from the recent Mobile World congress in Barcelona was the announcement of a totally new smartphone from Sony Ericsson. Many prior to the start of the event were expecting the official unveiling of the next P-series device, rumoured to be the P5i, but instead we got a completely new series, the first of which is the XPERIA X1.
Previous mobile office devices from Sony Ericsson have been using Symbian as the main OS such as the P1i, but things seem to have changed as the X1 will be the first Sony Ericsson phone to run on Windows Mobile. More to the point, it will be the first mobile phone to utilise the new Window Mobile 6.1 Professional Operating System, which already gives it a head start over its rivals that use version 6, although Windows Mobile 6.1 hasn't even been officially announced yet, so what differences the new version offers over the old remains to be seen.
The X1 has a 3" touchscreen with very few controls on the front-end and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and reminds me a bit of the E-ten M700 & X500 as both share the same square design with few front controls and a large keyboard. Judging by the separation between each button typing will should be easy for this phone, although the keypad itself does look a bit dull thanks to the cold metallic greyscale used. Enhancing this even further is the Arc-Slider design which offers a slight elevation on the screen when slid out, a little similar to the HTC TYTN II but on a much lower scale.
The amount of functionality that Sony Ericsson have managed to pack into a mobile phone less than 17mm thick is quite some achievement. Options for connectivity are plentiful, which is no less than the general expectations for a business device such as this. As well as standard GPRS and Bluetooth, you also have advanced 3G at 3.6Mbps (or HSDPA if you like) and Wi-Fi as well. A 3.5mm audio jack is also available too to make for a great set of options, which offers a tantalising glimpse of what else is on offer.
One aspect that disappointed me in some smartphones lately is under the surface as although the feature set has been expanding constantly, insufficient processors or RAM chips have caused a major hindrance to speed & usability. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 will have a 528Mhz Qualcomm processor and 128MB of RAM, which perhaps 8 or so years ago would have been specs similar to a standard home PC. Having this much power will hopefully ensure that the X1 will be lightning quick, though to be fair Sony Ericssons previous flagship smartphone the P1i didn't suffer with this problem at all so any concerns to this end are likely to be unfounded, but lets wait and see before conclusions are reached in haste.
Screen Auto-UI rotation is supported which in essence means that when the phone is tilted for viewing in landscape mode, the screen follows suit. This should hopefully save power being diverted from the processor when opening up the keyboard and presumably save time.
Aside from the office & business features the X1 continues to offer even more for the expected high-price tag. Music is catered for ably thanks to the compatibility with Bluetooth headphones and the wealth of on-board memory available. A massive 400MB of internal memory will be available as well as the usual microSD slot, though whether the XPERIA X1 will incorporate SDHC cards is to be confirmed. An FM radio with RDS is also available in the unlikely event you run out of music or simply get bored of your own collection.
To top everything off nicely, the XPERIA X1 has a built-in GPS receiver enabling use as a sat-nav device with compatible software and there is also a 3.15MP camera with autofocus & flash. There is no word at this time whether the X1 will come bundled with any navigation software, but hopefully that will be revealed shortly.
Although I will reserve judgement until I can properly put the OS through its paces, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 does already look very tantalising and the sheer wealth of features they've managed to squeeze in just leaves one question - how long 'til I can buy one!?
