The leak about Sony Ericsson’s G series of handsets last week seems to have deflected attention away from the company’s real show stopping announcement. Out of nowhere at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Sony Ericsson has unveiled the XPERIA X1 convergence phone.
The device is a has a full three inch VGA touchscreen nestling on top of an arc sliding QUERTY that shimmies out from the side of the device. Not only that but there are various face buttons on the device too designed to make assigning specific controls all the easier.
The device is packing Windows Mobile rather than Symbian and has a full suite of multimedia bells and whistles to make use of its copious interface options. That means the PlayNow music service is built in along with Windows Media Player Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile an FM radio, video streaming and support for 3D games.
Disappointingly, the XPERIA only has a 3.2 megapixel camera. Similarly, the device opts for memory card based storage rather than a nice big chunk of inbuilt flash which is a bit of a let down for such a media focused device. There is the inclusion of WLAN however and aGPS which is a nice addition. Still, 3G would have been nice.
The overall form factor is classy and the arc slider design and metallic casing (available in silver and black) will no doubt give the XPERIA X1 a solid build quality and reassuringly expensive feel. It looks like the X1 is the first handset in what is a new brand for Sony Ericsson which seeing as there is only one variant (as opposed to Sony Ericsson’s typical two or three) suggests that the XPERIA is set to become something of a flagship line for the company.
We are just itching to get our hands on one so if the opportunity arises at the Mobile World Congress this week, we’ll be sure to deliver a full report.
Can you guys find out the CPU details please (500Hz) and whether hardware-accelerated ?
umm, it does have 3G!! clearly says so on the sony ericson website.