Got my Sony Ericsson Xperia X10- My First Impressions!

Finally Got my Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 after a lot of fuss bout the availability issues. It’s now a week with my Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and now i think is the perfect time to describe my first experiences with it.

After it’s launch on March 26th, i finally got it in my hands on March 31st when a Sony Store in Noida got it, they quoted the best price as 33,000 INR and i was disappointed with the fact that they are not providing MW600( Bluetooth Stereo with FM ) in India. I just couldn’t buy it that day and bought it after two days. ( Was lucky, that i waited for 2 days, — by the time you’ll reach the end of this, you’ll know why? )

Color
I got Luster white. Here in India, they are having just the Black dummy with them, everywhere. So, you couldn’t actually assess how beautiful the White one looks. ( Until you buy one! ). But fortunately, the Sony Experience store i bought it from had a working live demo of both the colors – Sensuous Black and Luster White. They have got it for their personal use, perhaps.
To me Luster White is a killer option and with the X10′s design it’s mind blowing. It’s shines like anything, in the sun. And it’s really LUSTER white not the pale white.
Well if you choose the Luster white, you got to be extra careful as well. It has glossy back and is a finger print magnet. The sides of screen has a ridge over the perimeter of the screen and it doesn’t help the Luster white either. Dust easily accumulates there. Well, as i said, you’ll have to be extra careful if you chose the white one.
Black one has a rubbery back and gives much of a solid feel.

Size
Well, it’s smaller than what i thought it would be and looks much thinner than any other phone. the design does wonders. The box is also small than what it appears on those Youtube Videos.
Well, i considered to not make an Un-boxing video for you must have had enough of this. You already know whats inside the box and how does it look like. Well my box included
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
- 8GB Micro SD Card ( Inside the X10 Unit )
- Battery
- Charger Plug ( Three Pin Plug )
- Data cable
- Screen Protector ET902
- Leather Pouch
- Documentation

First Boot Up
Although i was having a live demo of the phone, i was curious to know bout my xperia X10 being booted for the first time. I intentionally booted it without sim card. I used it without the sim card for around half hour to find that Landscape doesn’t work there ( not in the videos or the messaging ), even though it was activated in the settings. ( A bug perhaps. )
It presents you with nice options to set up different aspects of your phone. It automatically downloaded the Vodafone Edge Settings, which pleased me. ( I don’t think other android devices have this. )
There were four videos pre-loaded on my unit but no Mp3′s.

Timescape
It was pleasure to see it in action with my own contacts and stuff. It is not lagging at all ( if you don’t consider the starting time. )
- It lists only the Missed calls when i thought, it would record each of my call log.
- I would never set it as my home screen as it’s the only screen you’ll be left with. No customized folders will make things complex for me.
- The Timescape widget doesn’t update for me all the time? ( Some bug i guess. ) M not on a data plan, generally on wi-fi. It works perfectly after i place a new widget deleting the old one. But after sometime it stops at a update and doesn’t update after it. It’s only in the widget.
- Clicking on the Facebook tile doesn’t open up the Facebook mobile, it gives an error in the browser. ( will post a screen shot. )
- Can not use Facebook profile picture as contact picture and that is really frustrating.
- The viewing pleasure in form of tiles is really nice.

Mediascape
Meiascape is nothing different from an awesome Media player for android with sexy interface.
- Well, the video section has no online suggestion at the bottom.
- Playnow arena says not available in our country( India ), which makes the Video and Audio tab almost same.
- Pictures tab will display local and online content from your Facebook and picasa. Both work great.
My only gripe here is the Loading Hour glass when flipping through pics. I mean how can Slideshow does it more smother and without that irritating horuglass? BTW, there are cool animations for the pics slideshow, check out. ( And ofcourse the Pinch zoom Doesn’t work and will never work as the phone doesn’t support Multi-touch at the Hardware level. )
- Can’t specifically remove an Audio album or cover it from being appearing in the Medisacape. Like it also show the media files from the game downloads. Which is quite frustrating. :
- Overall speed is quite good here with occasional lags in the opening of it. That is because of the background processes i guess and also due to the Android version. I will suggest you to use a Task killer app like “Advanced Task Manager” and kill the apps when you are done using it.
- The infinity button makes life so simple. Navigating and reaching a contact and related information is just a tap away. Just tap the Infinity button. Love this one. You got to use it to understand it and it’s necessity.
- I tried playing divx on yxflash player form market and it worked flawlessly. So, Snapdragon can do it. Expecting a support in the codecs in the next firmware update.

Phonebook and Messaging
Phoneboook is revamped from the original stock android version and with that Infinity Button, you would love it. It brings all your mails, texts, pics, songs social stuff at one place.
Loved the phonebook with Infinity Button.
Messaging also comes along with the infinty button and other things are simila to the stock android version and does the job pretty neatly and does it really quickly as well.

Battery Life
If you’ve asked me bout the battery life before i upgraded to the new Firmware, i would have said a simple “Poor”, but now it’s more than average. Will last for a day with some intensive use.
I would recommend everyone to charge it for around 10-15hrs for first 3-5times to make it last longer and have a better performance.
There are other tricks as well to increase the battery life as well, will post that in a separate post.

Camera
Well, it would impress anyone of you out there and it does really beat many stand alone Digital cameras for that matter. Produces a wonderful quality of pics. I used to have a shaky hand earlier but now when i take it, they are crip and clear.
- Loads of customization options available.
- Flash is not good enough to light up your pics in dark.
- Click to save time is less in comparison to other devices.
- Document mode would leave you amazed. It’s as good as scanned.

Sound
Well i’m pretty pleased with the sound quality on the earphones i got in the box ( MH500 ). Base level is pretty good. It’s not too loud but not weak enough to leave you grunting. I have used one app which had the equalizer too and it could make it any better. So, i guess i won’t miss the Equalizer here. And yeah, with the interface of Mediascape, it’s a pleasure anyways.
But the sound in external speakers needs some boost, i think it’s low.

Call Quality
It’s quite clear, never had issues with this one nor did i find anyone complaining at the other side .
SO, it’s good and loud enough.

Screen
The screen looks fantastic, and really a pleasure to watch videos in it. The size doesn’t obstruct you from using it one hand only if you wish to. Well most of the time, you would love to hold it in two hands. The touch response is as good and fast as you would expect it to be. Kinetic scrolling is pleasure here. I didn’t notice any problems with the responsiveness of the screen anywhere. ( Used some drawing apps to see if it works properly at every corner of the screen. )
But m disappointed with the screen resolution. I’ve seen people calming that it’s really difficult to notice the difference between 65k and 16m color screens. But i would say it from my personal experiences that it’s really easy to notice the difference. Take for example the standard keyboard also lets you see the difference in the texture pattern at the bottom keys. And it’s visible in almost all the apps i use. It’s quite frustrating. I simply hope the screen resolution gets fixed in the firmware update. Please!

Charging
It does take around 4-5hours to fully charge from zero mark. It then automatically disconnects and so saves power. I was planning to get an ‘green app’ from market for this purpose until i found this was inbuilt. And i find it very nifty feature.

Software Keyboard
There has been a lot of complaints about the standard keyboard that Sony Ericsson has customized in the X10, that it doesn’t register the “a” and “p” keys. And i conform that!
My phone initially had the firmware version “R1FA014″ out of the box and it had some major issues with the keyboard not registering the letter “a” and “p”. But when i upgraded my phone with the new firmware “R1FA016″, those issues seem to get away, not completely though. ( will post in a while, on how to upgrade your Xperia X10 to the new Firmware. ) It still had those occasional skip in registering the letters. Although Sony Ericsson gave us the option of switching between stock android keyboard as well, but i didn’t like it too much either. ( Design wise! )
The standard keyboard is very good in design but still i’ve to move to another keyboard and i moved to swype. ( Will post bout swype later! You’ll love this keyboard. )
Well another thing is the Landscape mode, and it worked fine for me in the earlier firmware as well. Infact you would love the experience with such a large screen. Standard keyboard is really nice, i would miss the look of it at least.

Lack Of Multi-Touch
Just a week before the launch of Xperia X10, Rikard at the Product Launch Blog declared that X10 can not support Multi-touch at the hardware level. I was really disappointed of this fact. I was waiting for this phone since it was announced way back in November Last year. Infact i started to look for another devices to substitute this, but didn’t find any and so bought it at last and mind you, have no regrets except for the fact that i miss the multi-touch a lot.
I see people at Sony Ericsson is repetedly stressing on the fact that, they might come up with better solutions to “Pinch zooming”. But they are perhaps trying to cover things. I mean we don’t need Multi-touch for pinch zooming only. ( Thats a fancy add on to display a vital specification of your device. )
There are a lot of games and app which use Multi-touch and i’m really missing those on my Xperia X10.
And in general it improves your typing speed. For example if you look at the Standard keyboard, if you slide you finger from one key to another, it would register the second key. So, if you are typing fast and press two letters at almost same time, it would only register the second letter and skip the first one. And it’s not the case with Multi-touch keyboards.
There are many more possibilities with the Multi-touch, and it’s not all about pinch-zooming.
Really disappointed here.

Now the price factor and surprise!
After a lot of bargain i got this phone for Rs. 30,500INR in New Delhi on April 2nd 2010.
And most of all, i got it with an scheme of ” Free Reebok sports kit with the phone ”
The Reebok sports kit included,
- Reebok Wrist watch
- Reebok Sunglasses.
- Reebok Track suit
- Travel Bag
- Towel
- 2 Pair Socks.
So, i was really delighted bout the offer i got. So wasn’t really dissapointed with the fact that i didn’t get MW600 with the Xperia X10.

Please feel free to share your first impressions in the comments section and also post if you are facing any problems with it.
I’ll keep updating the post with things i keep discovering and with the screenshots as well. Tell me things you would like to hear bout the phone and i would post my un-biased opinions bout the same.
Looking for Great Apps for your Xperia X10, head over to Top 10 Free Apps for Your Xperia X10-A Must Have List.

Update : The latest Firmware as of date May 10th 2010 is R1FB001. Check out on how to upgrade you Xperia X10 to the Latest Firmware R1FB001.

Related posts:

1. MWC’10 set to start with Sony Ericsson Press Conference & Launch of New Xperia Phones
2. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 & Vivaz Launched in India by Kareena Kapoor
3. 3 New Phones announced by Sony Ericsson at MWC ’10-Xperia X10,Mini,Vivaz,Vivaz Pro
4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Launch and Price in India
5. Xperia X10 is Upgradeable to Android 2.1-Does it really Need to?

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