Sony ericsson XPERIA X1

The extra solid metal looks, gorgeous screen and the right pinch of novelty called XPERIA panels look to us as good enough reasons for the X1 to be hyped and romanticized. By the way, romance or not, Sony Ericsson and HTC have hit their perfect shape with that one.

The XPERIA X1 is surely the most eagerly anticipated device in the world of Windows Mobile. Getting our review out was surely quite a wait too, we know. Better late than ever, as some folks say. We'll still have our say 'cause for the XPERIA it's a load of high expectations to live up to.

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support plus HSDPA 7.2Mbps
• 3-inch 65K-color WVGA touchscreen
• Qualcomm MSM7200 528 Mhz CPU and 256 MB DDR SDRAM
• 3.15 MP auto focus camera with VGA video recording
• Four-row full QWERTY slide-out keyboard
• Wi-Fi and built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS
• X-Panels interface
• Optical trackpad
• Exquisite and solid metallic body
• Standard miniUSB port and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• microSD memory expansion
• FM radio with RDS
• 3.5mm standard audio jack
• MS Office Mobile document editor
• Opera 9.5 web browser
• Excellent video playback performance
• Superb audio quality

Main disadvantages:

• Body is a bit on the bulky side
• User interface is hardly thumb-optimized
• Mediocre camera performance
• No built-in accelerometer
• Poor display sunlight legibility
• Records low quality VGA@30fps video in 3GP format
• No TV-out port
• No full Flash support for the browser (hence no full-featured YouTube)

The XPERIA X1 is one of the best-equipped Windows Mobile devices to ever set foot on the market. But hey, is it not the most elaborate and charismatic PocketPC too? As to skills, the high-res 3" screen and the full QWERTY keyboard seem the most important parts of its magnificent ammo though its processing power is not to be neglected either.