Sony Ericsson XPeria X1

Aside from the iPhone 3G, the Sony Ericsson XPeria X1 is probably one of the most highly anticipated smartphone for the year 2008. I looked into the prototyped of the XPeria X1 given to me last week to find out if it lives up to the hype.

Design and Construction. A touch-screen and a full QWERY keyboard is a rare combination and Sony Ericsson offers both. Solid stainless-steel construction all around — even the keyboard is made up of polished aluminum. The keys are somewhat beveled and spaced just right although if you have big fingers, you’d end up using your fingernails to press them. It’s pretty easy to get used to with very minimal incidents of mis-typing.

The slider is a little curved which gives a smooth and snappy action when popping out the keyboard. At 17mm thick, it’s just right with the hands and reasonable for a slider phone. In contrast, the XPeria is 1mm thinner than the Nokia N96, N81 and N82.

The finish gave an overall impression that the phone was made in great detail and strong materials. The only significant non-metallic parts are the glossy plastic keypads on the front panel. The phone feels a bit heavy though but that is expected with all that metallic body.

The Screen Real Estate. The front panel features a 3-inch screen with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. Video quality is top notch — crisp with high contrast and has a wide-angle view (you can still clearly see the videos at close to 90-degree angle). Playback is smooth but I noticed a lag of about 2 to 3 seconds when loading up the videos.

The XPeria comes with a stylus (and an extra one) tucked in at the top left on the back side for use to navigate the screen menu. You can use your fingers most of the time but there will be instances when you’ll really need the stylus as the menu items of Windows Mobile get too narrow for the fingers. There’s limited haptic feedback on selected functions.

The speakers are found at the bottom end of the phone. Sound volume is a little low that you’ll will find it hard to listen to any vocal audio even at normal ambient noise. Good thing Sony brought in one of their fine earbud headphones (35mm jack) to compensate for that. The FM tuner gets excellent reception when the headphones are attached.

An Internet Device. The XPeria gives an impression that it’s more of an internet device than a phone. Comes with HSDPA (7.2Mbps) and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g so you don’t have problems with connectivity. The real bonus here actually is the pre-installed Opera Mobile 9.5 (a $24 value) which gives you real internet browsing experience — plays flash content, save images/pages, copy/paste, tabbed-browsing, Ajax-support and a lot more.

Web pages renders fast and you get to view all types of sites from the Flash-powered Cartoon Network to the Ajax-powered BaseCamp. When tethered to a PC/laptop via microUSB or Bluetooth, you can share 3G internet connection with an easy one-click activation.

The Panel Interface. Aside from the usual Windows Mobile navigation and interface, Sony Ericsson added an XPeria Panel UI to easily launch applications or features from the front screen. You can see a short video clip of the panels in action below:

Each panel acts like a widget which you can customize. Furthermore, you can download additional panels developed by Sony Ericsson or other 3rd-party developers. I downloaded one which makes an eye-candy widget to more shortcuts on the phone. As of the moment, there are only a few panels available on the site and you’re also limited to a maximum of 9 active panels on the phone.

Since the XPeria X1 is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, you also get access to hundreds of free and paid softwares developed for it. The unit I have is just a prototype version so there are still kinks with the operating system though I’ve only experienced the device freezing just once (not the BSOD kind).

The camera at the back is rated at 3.2MP (2048×1536 pixels) but the autofocus works well that it can take decent to good quality pictures depending on lighting conditions. Here are samples of shots I took with the phone’s camera.

There’s a dedicated camera button at the right bottom side of the phone for when taking photos or you can use the center button on the front panel. The center button also serves as a 4-way directional button and optical mouse. The optical mouse takes a bit of time to get used to but you can adjust the sensitivity to your liking.

Multiple Device Input. Aside from the QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the phone, there’s a virtual keyboard you can activate to use with the stylus. The virtual keyboard seems a bit small despite occupying about 30% of the screen. On top of that, you get navigational buttons on the front panel and the touch screen. There’s no other way to get as much input system as that although sometimes you get confused which one to use.

With the GPS and Google Maps pre-installed, you can basically get turn-by-turn navigation with map data.

Battery life lasts an average of 2 and a half days with normal internet and phone use. The Lithium Polymer battery is rated at 1500mAh, just like the one on the Nokia E71. The phone charges with hooked up to the PC via the USB cable.


What’s missing? Well, for one, I find the internal storage of 512MB memory a bit lacking (at least 4GB would have been better). Yes, you can stick in a 16GB microSD card but that would have cost you more. There’s also a limited number of panels to download and use but I guess that will be addressed in time. The external speakers need some re-work too.

Overall, the XPeria X1 is a strong candidate for “Smartphone of the Year” and Windows Mobile users will find this model very attractive. We’ll just have to wait though how much this unit will eventually cost once it hits the stores by end of the month. More often than not, it’s the retail price that’s always a big spoiler to potential customers.

Disclosure: This prototype/trial unit was given to me by Sony-Ericsson. They are also an advertiser on this blog. There’s a risk that it may influence my review but I always try to be very objective about them.

:RoN™

G1 Google Android

After a week of playing with Google and HTC’s new Android phone, I can say that there’s a huge promise with the platform. See unboxing photos here and specs here.

Let’s break it down to two main components and focus there — hardware and operating system.

Hardware Construction and Design. Off the bat, the G1 phone is hideous — period. We’ve seen a lot of phones coming out of HTC but the HTC Dream is a really odd one. I think this model was conceptualized way back in 2003. And despite the plastic body, it still feels heavy and bulky to the hands.

A number of people asked me why the phone is angled at the bottom end. I realized the slight protrusion was done to give a better grip when handled horizontally and positioned to take pictures.

The well-spaced qwerty keyboard benefited from the wide body of the G1. Since the keypads are hidden from the slider, the individual keys are buried into the pad you don’t get much feedback when typing on them. The keyboard is also oriented heavily on the left side that your right thumb will have a hard time reaching the middle keys.

In the front panel, there are 5 buttons and a trackball that serves as main navigation and shortcuts for phone use. The trackball at they middle is very easy to use especially when running thru long lists like your Contacts or Playlist and crawling thru objects and links when browsing. It also serves as an Ok button.

At first glance, the lever that supports the slider looks like it’s made of plastic and could be a problem when it breaks off. However, the spring mechanism is constructed in metal so it may last prolonged usage. The phone makes some squeaking noise when applied with pressure or when flipped — sounds like walking over a bamboo floor.

The UI and Operating System. This is the first time I’ve used a new OS on a mobile phone. We’re already pretty familiar with the Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and iPhone OS. The Google Android platform performs better for a first generation OS. It’s fast, it’s responsive and integrates really well with Google Apps.

The main interfaces works like a desktop with icons scattered across 3 panes. It’s like an extended desktop you can flick across (similar to the iPhone but only limited to 3). There’s also a sidebar that extends across the screen which contains shortcuts to a lot functions or installed apps. What’s really nice is that alerts are non-intrusive — there’s a small one-liner ticker that slides at the top of the screen to indicate SMS and other notifications (along with a vibrate and buzzing sound).

The iPhone OS of Apple works seemlessly with the iPhone because the plaform was tailor-made for it. Likewise, Android was also tailor-made for the G1 and thus, you get an optimized UI and performance. The menus are intuitive and responds very well. There are some minor quirks here and there but overall, the OS performs in top shape.

Imagine having this platform on your favorite phone? The T-Mobile G1 is just a test model. Once we see more and more models go out with Android in it, the clearer it becomes to us that the platform is truly a solid contender against the iPhone OS.

:RoN™

Nokia 5800 - Touch XpressMusic

It seems, Nokia has planned a major offensive in the entertainment market of smartphones. The company has released a music smartphone with a large touch screen at an affordable price. Meet, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic!

Not to spend time of our Dear readers, we decided not to take a parallel between 5800, Apple iPhone and other comparable devices based on Windows Mobile. Each of us have our preferences, and this review is not to argue about tastes, so - immediately back to our review.
Design
A bit stretched, fairly narrow, slightly thicker than iPhone (in this case the comparison with «apllephone» is quite appropriate), and it sticks out from our pockets just a little.

All those who have had a chance to hold in their hands Nokia 5800, appreciated the pleasant rough surface of the backsides removable lid. If you talk about the quality of plastic, then for this model that I had, it was good enough (not outstanding) for the materials used. So we you want to say - plastic is plastic, nothing special.


The perimeter of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has a decorative red line, it overflows in rays of the Sun or lamps of the room, which sometimes looks quite attractive.
On the top the power button is placed. The left side has a slot for memory card microSD (the package has 8 GB card included). On the right side the volume control keypad and the camera key are for quick use.

Speakers for ringtones and music are placed on the right side end and are covered with thin decorative grid.

Installation (or actually the removal) of the SIM card has some difficulties or peculiarities - pushing it into the slot is easy, but to pull out, you should remove the battery and stylus and through a special hole push the card out.

So, clearly, to do this you have to turn off the device.

Only three keys are placed on the front panel - two traditional call and end keys and one for menu. For everything else you use the touch screen.

Overall, the appearance of Nokia 5800 is interesting. It attracts attention, and everyone who sees the Nokia 5800 will ask to hold in their hands … emmm, for ten minutes.
Display
Owners of iPhone with one voice claimed that their device has a much better screen. Yes, more precisely, it is simply larger - 3.5 inches to 3.2 from the Nokia 5800.
Many, and in particular I, did not like the boards around the perimeter of display of 5800 Tube are a bit higher.

A few days after you use the phone along the board dirt is accumulated and you’ll need to remove it with tissue. The screen at the end of the day looks not nice, especially when lights are off.

No problems with colors there - test images looked naturally. Screen size is large enough to view the images in the company of friends. Brightness is also sufficient for all situations, excluding only direct sunlight.
As expected, the device can automatically rotate the screen (using the gyroscope), which takes two seconds. It happens that sometimes 5800 rotates the screen when it is not required by mistake, for example in transport. This is an inconvenience, especially when writing a message.

Otherwise – honestly the display is perhaps the main best feature of Nokia’s answer to iPhone. Still, for the Nokia, 5800 XpressMusic is the first touch screen phone.
User Interface
Because there is no hard keyboard in 5800, its virtual analog can behold on the screen.
Keyboard for dialing can be called with one click from the main menu.
Numbers are convenient to type with even one hand, even in the car while driving. For typing, you can use four types of display layouts: a small keyboard, full keyboard, alphanumeric keyboard and handwriting recognition.

Small keyboard can be displayed in a vertical or horizontal mode, it can work only with the stylus.
Full (QWERTY-layout) keyboard is available only in the horizontal orientation of the display. In this case for typing, you can use your fingers, with a high level of comfort.

Alphanumeric is the normal phone mode, working both in vertical and horizontal modes. It’s also convenient, text and numbers can be typed with one hand. All is at decent level. When pressed to answer key device vibrates slightly, strength of vibration of course is regulated.

Handwriting recognition is perfectly realized and you can adapt Nokia 5800 to your own handwriting characters, but anyways by default it realized 80% marks from my handwriting, which is does not good at all, though I tried to write neatly.

Working with a virtual menu is possible both in vertical and horizontal modes, as you prefer.
All the icons (and not just on the main menu) are big, they are well seen in the distance of stretched hands. Moreover, they are convenient to touch with fingers, and not only with stylus or a mediator. Scroll up-down is convenient with a finger but not with gloves.
Music playback
Since Nokia 5800 is part of the musical series XpressMusic, sound obliged to be at least good. It’s pleasant listening music (in the literal sense of that word), so it is good. Of the popular audio formats device supports the MP3 (variable and fixed bit rate), WMA, AAC.
Six preset of equalizers (except for default), with the possibility of changing settings.

Equalizer is 8 band, equalizers can be moved up and down only with stylus.

Of course, the user can create a dozen of their musical presets under almost any style of music. When you switch presets sound changes very seriously, that is encouraging.

The quality of sound on the ear is the same as in Nokia 5130 XpressMusic and Nokia N85, which means that very, very high quality. For the test I chose music of different styles, with a maximum bitrate of 320 Kb/s and.

Volume is sometimes is not enough, especially in noisy places, subways and crowed transport even using proven ear-headphones Philips. But, again, the quality of my music playback is just great.

The interface is typical for smartphones on S60. Music can be sorted by artists, albums, composers, genres, play lists.

You can control player via touch screen, with fingers and also with stylus, both options are suitable. When you install a memory card into the slot and then start the player, the unit itself is looking for music in the card and updates Music library.

Interface of FM-receiver is pretty stylish. In addition, information is drawn from subcarrier (RDS), is seen running line at the bottom of the screen.
Camera
I won’t praise, because it seems that it is here just for being on it, if we compare it with «colleagues» of the Sony Ericsson C905 or Samsung i8510 INNOV8.
In Nokia 5800 Tube has a 3.2-MP camera with Tessar objective from Carl Zeiss. With two flashes, which also serve as backlight for autofocus.

We should acknowledge that it is not very convenient to switch settings using the OSD, along with touch screen. It has to stop, get stylus and have them make manipulation.

If the pictures taken outdoor in a good weather look decent, then in a room and in evenings/nights photos aren’t the best. Outcome – dark and noisy images with not perfect sharpness. But in general, want camera would you like to see in a low-cost music smartphone?

Conclusion
I can write about Nokia 5800 XpressMusic long enough. We stopped only on the main features, which buyers will pay attention to. And it is worth it. More precisely, once you hear the of volume ringtones and quality of music playback, than you’ll understand - this is a real music phone. And do not forget the high functionality of the new device, because on board it has Wi-Fi and GPS, and of course the first touch screen phone from Nokia.

See full specifications of Nokia 5800 here.

:RoN™

Nokia N81 8GB

I’ve been using the Nokia N81 for a couple of weeks now and I must say I wasn’t that quite excited about it as many would have. Despite the squarish and heavy built, this model is a beauty. Let me share some of the noticeable features of this unit.

The Nokia N81 8GB is a Special Edition primarily because of the Bose headphones that came with it. Oh, there’s that very special packaging too. See unboxing pics here.







And I have to admit, the Bose noise-canceling headphones were a big turn-on. It really does filter out ambient noise very effectively. It even has its own Lithium Ion battery that fits snugly in one of the earpieces for that extra umph. I originally thought it’s wireless and hooks up via Bluetooth but it turns out audio connection is via a 3.5mm stereo jack.

The phone itself though is a little heavy on the hands. I compared it with my friend’s Nokia N95 (120 grams) and it still feels much heavier despite being just 140 grams.

* Nokia N-Gage. The platform is not unique to the phone but it sure does make the gaming experience more enjoyable. I tried the try-before-you-buy games and they were cool but could not switch to multi-player or arcade mode unless I pay the subscription.
* Game Controls. On play mode, you switch the phone sideways (horizontally) so you can use the dedicated game buttons. The 2.4″ screen wasn’t as big as the 2.8″ of the N95 but the display is clear and crisp.
* Multimedia Controls. There’s also another set of controls for music called the Navi Wheel. The navipad is easily accessible on the front panel of the phone. Reminds me of the old iPod trackwheel.
* Storage. Aside from the phone memory and an external microSD card, this unit comes built-in with 8GB of storage — enough room for music, pictures and podcasts. It’s like having a phone and an iPod Nano in one.
* Connectivity. Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, 3G (not HSDPA!) and micro USB 2.0 — it’s all in there.

A couple odd stuff though…

* A different USB connector, not the standard micro USB one. Don’t know why they wanted to change that. What if I lost my USB cable? Where will I get a replacement?
* Music Player can only load playlists of downloaded songs (prolly from the Nokia Music Store), not imported ones from the PC. I had to use the File Manager in order to play my mp3 songs and it wasn’t fun not to have a playlist with that.

Then, there’s the 2MP camera which didn’t get as good picture quality as the N95. There’s no auto-focus either. Sure, this model was made specifically for gaming and multi-media so I shouldn’t be asking more than that — but still, I find the unit a little lacking.

Frankly, if not for those great Bose headphones, I wouldn’t be playing my music off of this phone. Nokia needs to try a little harder on this model.

Nokia N96

Nokia continues to put more into its N-series smartphones and a real hit is Nokia N96 which has improved a lot from its predecessor – N95.

Nokia N96 is made as a dual slider, as most of the current most successful phones.

N96 is available in black - front and backside. Sides of it are silver. The lid opens easily.

Screen has a QVGA resolution of 240×320 pixels, with 16 million colors and the diagonal is quite impressive - 2.8 inches. It is easily readable in any lighting conditions, though oddly enough colors tend to wash out in direct sunlight.

Above the screen, next to the main speaker is the VGA-camera for videocalling. On the right side surface, on top and bottom two additional speakers are placed, and keys for quick activation of camera and volume control. On the left side - a slot for microSD-cards.

Top side has a jack for a headset, the lock key, and on/off switch. Bottom side has jacks for microphone, USB-connector and plug for the charger.

5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera is prominently displayed, and is ringed in silver housing that flips out to act as a stand for the phone while viewing video.. If you open a multimedia keyboard, the device turns into multimedia player. In doing so, the image automatically turns clockwise by 90 degrees. To restore it back, you must open the digital keyboard. Nokia N96 folded keeps the screen orientation, which was before closing.

Navigation keys are not too convenient, too narrow bezel, it must draw a bead. And the area around the keypad is nothing more than another multimedia keyboard.

The main keypad is flush not mounted even a little. Backlight of the keys is white, very well visible almost in all conditions. Clicking on the keys is convenient. Any pressing is clearly accepted by the device.
Actually, with Nokia N96 we miss only touch sensitive screen especially after the iPhone and touch screen smartphones based on Windows Mobile.

The capacity of the battery is 950 mAh. As stated by the manufacturer, this is enough to view up to 4 hours of television (DVB-H), up to 5 hours - video or listen to 14 hours of music (video and music online Offline). In the intensive use of Nokia N96 (calls, camera, a bit of video, Internet), we used it for two days after full charging. If you use only phone’s calling functions, the charge is just enough for three days.
Embedded memory of the smartphone is divided into two parts - Phone memory and Mass memory. File manager sees them as two different discs. There are no any specific differences when you work with them. First - 256 Mb disc is to store a typical telephone personal information. Second - 16 GB you can use for everything else. If you have a microSD card inserted, then you’ve got the third disc.

USB 2.0 is included to connect to a computer. Four modes of connection is possible - as an external drive, using Nokia PC Suite, photos and synchronization with Windows Media Player.

Internet surfing can be done via mobile operators, with Wi-Fi version of 802.11 g/b which supports UPnP. When you try to open a web page in the browser Nokia N96 asks what connection to use. In addition to access to the internet, Wi-Fi can be used to transfer media files from smartphone to home devices.

N96 is equipped with a digital television receiver - DVB-H Class C. Besides, supported are downloading and sending video with streaming mode, as well as progressive downloading of files. Video playback has gotten special attention. N96 has received a hardware decoder H.263. Supported formats: MPEG-4 Part 2 (H.263/SP), MPEG-4 Part 10 (H.264/AVC), Windows Media Video (WMV9), RealVideo QCIF. The maximum allowed resolution for the player is QVGA, for video output – SDTV, Frequency - 30 frames per second.

In addition, the Internet browser of Nokia N96 supports Flash-video. The quality of video playback on its own display will satisfy almost any user.

Images from the 5 megapix camera leave a dual impression. Pictures taken in the streets out in a day and did not raise any criticism, but those that are taken in a room seem blurry.
Built-in flash does not always save the situation, but leaves us with the quality of 5 megapixel camera.

Nokia N96 picture - street.

The music player is typical for Nokia. The sound corresponds top models. If the music in your phone is not sufficient, FM-radio will come to help you.

Nokia N96 has a GPS-receiver, which is working fast enough. The company offers free downloadable maps of 150 countries around the world. Honestly, I would like to see maps installed or in the sales package in such a device of high class and for this price.
What about applications in Nokia N96. For example, the existing Office is incomplete. It allows opening and reading text files, spreadsheet and presentation only. To create new or edit an existing document, will have to buy a license.
Full technical specifications of Nokia N96 are:

WCDMA2100/900 (HSDPA) / EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS) connectivity
DVB-H Class C, 470-750 MHz
S60 3rd edition, FP2 UI
2.8” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display with up to 16 million colors
5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and auto-exposure
Dual-LED camera flash, video light, recording indicator, auto-focus assist light
Secondary VGA (640 x 480 px) camera for video calls
Video capture in MPEG-4 up to VGA at 30 fps
Digital Video Stabilization
Built-in GPS/A-GPS
WLAN - IEEE802.11 g/b
Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz, 76-90MHz) with RDS
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 with Micro USB type B interface
3.5mm stereo headset plug , TV-out support (PAL/NTSC)
Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP stereo/EDR
950 mAh battery with up to 220 min talk, 220 hrs standby time, 5 hrs video, 14 hrs music or 4 hrs TV playback
Dimensions: 103×55×18 mm
Weight: 125 g

:RoN™