If you are someone who keeps track of the what's going on in the Electronics world, you sure would have heard of Sony's new Smartphone Xperia X1. But isn't that an old news ? Well, Yes and No. Sony announced the phone way back in Feb. But its back in news now due to some leaks on the net that put the release date somewhere in Sep 2008. Details of the smartphone fewtures can be found here . You got to check it out. It sure is a cool one, specially that arc keyboard. You may also want to checkout the X1 film on the X1 site I linked to above that will give you an idea of the relative size of the phone.
I am more of a business user who has been using a Treo 650 for a while now and I find it exciting and easy to use. Based on my needs, my perception of an ideal phone for me is one that lets me talk a lot, lets me get onto the internet when I feel like, has wi-fi so that when I am in a hotspot, I can use the high speeds, provides support for music and videos, has a decent camera, and has a touchscreen for sure. In all, I want a smartphone that makes me feel smart for owning it.
Personally, this phone has excited me more than iPhone did. Why ? For one, when iPhone hit the market, like many curious people, I went over to the Apple store to check it out. And I sure liked it. But the biggest drawback that I found with the phone was an absence of keyboard. While music and wireless access is fine, when it comes to typing on that touchscreen, I thought it was a pain to be write long messages. My index finger was twice the size of the keys on the screen and I made a lot of mistakes typing. For the 15 mins or so that I experimented with iPhone, I kept wondering if I will ever be able to type with both my hands on iPhone, and everytime, I found myself answering a NO. While everything about iPhone is a breakthrough and I respect the Apple guys for the mega technological innovation, I had to keep down the display unit and head back home :) I still am an old school guy who prefers those 26 alphabets on different keys because, lets face it, I am a normal person who needs a phone for normal day to day activities that includes talking, making notes, mailing, and well, maybe music too ! I don't see myself using applications that will somehow be restricted due to those keys physically being there.
So when Sony announced X1, I thought they heard me ! Here you have a phone that does everything I want it to, has a touchscreen like iPhone that lets me do things easily when its just a touch that is all needed,but when I want to type out something, an arc slider slides out that offers me a full QWERTY keyboard! Phew ! Thats cool ! There are other phones available that have similar design like ATT Tilt but the reviews tell me that the QVGA display it sports isn't a great choice for internet applications. And somehow Xperia excites me more :) Read the specs on the site I mentioned above and see a few videos on you tube. It will excite you too ! And as with all phone launches, XPERIA also has a bunch of other exciting features. But visual voicemail is definitely not one of the, something that I loved on iPhone.
Xperia has it downsides too ! The most discussed one is that its going to run on Windows Mobile 6.1 . Ah, windows here too ? Well, when the phone comes out, we will have to check that out for ourselves. It seems unlikely that its going to have a huge inbuilt memory, but then it will support microSD and I can live with that. But at this time I am eagerly waiting for Xperia X1. I hope it delivers what it promises to.
BTW, the P1i from Sony isn't too bad either. I am still to get my hands on it but I think its a nice option for people who don't want to wait till XPERIA comes out, or think XPERIA may be too expensive for them(the rumored price for unlocked version of XPERIA is said to be around a 1000 $s !!!)
So till then, I will stick to my Treo 650, which is an excellent phone but lacks wi-fi. We never feel satisfied, do we ? :)
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