Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2

30 Jan

Posted by doubledt as Review

XPERIA X2

The long waiting is over now, as Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 has been made available for purchase at the beginning of this month. It was back in February 2008 that the XPERIA lineup was born and it took Sony Ericsson almost two years to launch about the XPERIA X1 successor. Sony Ericsson hopes with this new handset, XPERIA X2, it can capture the interest of those looking for a phone that crosses the line between business and leisure.

Before we start our review, we need to inform you that the XPERIA X2 is only the second Pocket PC in the XPERIA lineup after the XPERIA X1. The XPERIA series come in different shapes and sizes, but it all powered with Windows Mobile. The XPERIA X2 is perfectly aware of that and comes to offer some all-round Pocket PC skills and the aggressive styling of its forerunner.

The new phone echoes the design of the original XPERIA X1, but improves in nearly every area, with Sony Ericsson taking the lead on construction for the new XPERIA X2. The new handset is a compact device with a slide out QWERTY keyboard that has four extra buttons aimed at better navigation, and the panels system developed for the original XPERIA X1 also remains. The size of the display screen has increased and is now 3.2 inches (used to be 3 inches with XPERIA X1), having a resolution of 480×800 pixels. The XPERIA X2 features TFT resistive touch-screen with 65k colors support. The image quality is magnificent and the display screen remains useable in the sunlight too.

XPERIA X2 Front

Undoubtedly, XPERIA X2 is launched to the market to meet up the increasing demand of non-stop connectivity. The Sony Ericsson have provided it users to work without any limitations with 30 XPERIA panels (14 pre-loaded and 16 downloaded) that include Windows Live, Skype, Mytopia, Google, CNN, etc. This feature helps users to remain updated 24/7. In order to enhance the features like business, communication and fun, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 has brought in a 3D signature panel and a sophisticated touch interface. Thus the users can set news, videos or even games at different times of the day and remains entertained and updated.

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 allows it users to connect to the Internet via 3G and Wi-Fi. However, unlike the XPERIA X1, the Opera Mobile is not pre-installed onto the handset and the default browser is the standard Internet Explorer 6.

The new XPERIA X2 provides DVD quality display, which gives an immaculate experience of watching the slideshow of photos and the videos. The users can click images and can instantly share them with buddies. With 8.1MP camera, the quality of images is just fabulous. The other features of the camera include up to 16x digital zoom, image stabilizer and geo-tagging. Video recording is also supported in the handset and the users can make use of video light and touch focus, also to upload the images to Facebook instantly and share them with family and friends.

XPERIA X2 Back

The XPERIA X2 runs Windows Mobile 6.5 (WinMo 6.5). Visually, WinMo 6.5 upgrades the older ver. 6.1 with a brand-new and much prettier home-screen. It also swaps the Start menu with a regular “main-menu”, which displays all your applications and links to system functions in a honeycomb grid. Windows Mobile 6.5 on the XPERIA X2 is not as responsive as we’d hope given that this is the company’s latest high-end handset. There is noticeable lag at times, though the interface has been improved a lot since the pre-launch unit we based our preview on. Still, the persistent lag combined with the relatively slow and unresponsive touch-screen, gives the impression of a sluggish user-interface, something that does Sony Ericsson no favors. Moreover, the XPERIA X2 runs on the same hardware as XPERIA X1 and the reasons for this become obvious. Trying to run a hungry, modern operating system on outdated hardware is not a wise option to success.

Conclusions

The XPERIA X2 is supposed to carry the torch from the XPERIA X1. Normally, we would expect the successor to bring some innovations along but those are almost non-existent on the XPERIA X2, save for the slightly larger display and the better camera. Those aside, when we pop open the hood, we find the old hardware lurking underneath the revamped exterior.

There are much ideas incorporated into the XPERIA X2 (the improved panels, Flash support in the web browser, DivX and XviD video support out of the box). However, all of those features have made the system run slower. The 528MHz CPU sounded great two years ago, but feel pretty underpowered today in comparison with Snapdragons.

Therefore, if you already own the XPERIA X1, you could safely skip the upgrade to the XPERIA X2. If, on the other hand, you are contemplating the purchase of a QWERTY-enabled Pocket PC, the Sony Ericsson X2 is pretty much in the picture, but it is not without alternatives, such as the Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO, the HTC Touch Pro2 and the Acer M900. However, their screens are really big (reaching up to 3.8 inches). The HTC and the Acer are almost a year old and their hardware is similar to the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2’s, while the more recent B7610 OmniaPRO packs a faster CPU. However, if you are sick of WinMo and want to try something new, then you could try the Maemo-powered Nokia N900.

Undoubtedly, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 is facing strong competition and the few bright spots on its spec sheet are not enough to make it the definitive upgrade. The current market price of the gadget is around 470 euro. And considering what you get for the money, that is steep.