On 1 Apr 2010, Sony-Ericsson and DoCoMo released a new Android Smart Phone in Japan called the Xperia. The rest of the world knows this phone by the name Xperia X10 but DoCoMo identifies it as the Xperia SO-01B.
Eager to try out the latest hype, I signed up on a wait list about a week after the initial release of 50,000 units sold out, and waited about another week until the second shipment of 30,000 units trickled down to my neighborhood good-deal phone dealer. Apparently, I was lucky since other stores and DoCoMo shops in the Tokyo area were still reporting in excess of 40 people on each of their waiting lists–literally thousands of people waiting for the new SonyEricsson device. Thus far, I’ve had my Sony Xperia X10 Smartphone since 17 April 2010–just over a month–and I have learned much about the strengths and weaknesses of the Xperia device and the Android platform.
Let me cut to the chase: If you drool over the Android platform and you love having the most impressive specs, this is probably the phone for you. I admit I purchased the phone based on specs alone: 8.1 Megapixel camera, 384MB of RAM, 1GB of internal storage, 16GB external SD card included, 1 GHz Snapdragon QSD8250 processor, Timescape and Mediascape to tie up e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and all my music, photos and videos; all runing on Google Android 1.6 (affectionately called “Donut”). And of course, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a gorgeous 480×854 pixel 4 inch display. Did I mention the battery is removable and replaceable?
It looked like just the device for people like me who wanted an iPhone-like device but without the SoftBank service–a SmartPhone that could do it all–reduce personal clutter, combine devices–like an FM radio, voice recorder, cellular phone, camera, and laptop (for short e-mails and quick web searches)–and still leave room for upgrades and games. So I got one.
But I am disappointed. Seeking perfection, I got possibilities. Hoping for the Holy Grail, I got a promise. Quite simply, the interface and the apps lack polish. It is not clear to me if this a hardware limitation or an Android limitation, but the end result of the package is a less than completely satisfying experience–at times it is downright frustrating. I give it three stars on a scale of 5. However, over 100,000 units sold in the first 20 days of the Japan campaign. DoCoMo is targeting sales of 1,000,000 units total. So maybe I am just asking too much from my phone. Read on to learn more and make your own call (pun intended).
Out of the Box:
I pulled my Sensuous Black Smartphone out of a well designed and good looking black box. The shape of the phone was immediately appealing and fit my hand perfectly. The phone was not usable without a SIM card. Powering up without the card brings up the screen and an emergency call setting, but you cannot access any of the features beyond this. Inserting the Sim card was an exercise in patience. I was loathe to damage my new phone and at first I was worried about breaking the plastic back. Now that I know how to pull the back off, I can do it with ease and without worry (you have to put your fingernail into the slot on the bottom of the phone and pull the back off with a peeling motion.)
With the sim card now installed, the included 16GB memory card confirmed in the device, and the back replaced; I pressed the power on button for the required 1+ second. A quick Sony-Ericsson vibration notified me that the phone was indeed powering on. 10 seconds to display “Sony Ericsson” in white letters on a black screen, 7 seconds later “DoCoMo” appears in similar font, and then finally, 9 seconds later, 26 long seconds after pressing the power button for the first time, the phone is displaying a beautiful blue screen with the local time and date. Fortunately, it only takes this long on the initial power up.
Once you swipe past this time display, there are three home screens: center, left and right. On the bottom is a drawer that stores all the apps. And on the top of the screen is a function display with the time and status of the phone and another drawer with notifications such as missed calls and new e-mails. This was all new to me since this was my first Android device.
So far so good.
The next thing I wanted to experiment with was the camera. As a camera buff, I expected a lot from this device. I was disappointed. The focusing speed is adequate, the options sufficient, but the lag from pressing the shutter button to actually getting a shot is much more than the average waitress can handle. This is not the device to hand to someone to get a picture of you and your friends when you get together for an impromptu reunion. Especially if you are in a dimly lit restaurant. Often, the camera refuses to take a photo until the first image is saved, but there is nothing to let you know that you must wait. So the poor waitress keeps pressing the button to no effect. Of course, you can get a photo if you are patient, but it takes several frustrating tries. Once the image is taken though, if there is enough lighting, the image is sharp and impressive. The macro focus is nice and gets in close. But low-lighting really stumps this camera. Hard to get a decent image if you are in a dim restaurant or outside at night. There is no flash, just a bright light that you have to manually turn on.
The dialer is adequate with lots of real estate dedicated to the important buttons. But the Contacts interface and call history leaves much to be desired. If you select English as the interface language, you get the alphabet in tiny letters from A-Z along the right side. You can try to aim for a letter close to the letter you desire (not possible to get it right every time with those tiny letters) and then scroll from that point. If you select Japanese as your language, you get the hiragana syllabary followed by the alphabet from A-Z. Selecting the Japanese language for the phone also allows you to modify the reading of your contacts–a feature not available under English. Each of your contacts has a strange silhouette icon until you select a photo from your SD card (note, it does not allow you to jump over to Facebook to pick a photo….so good luck running around taking photos of your friends or finding a way to download images from the Internet…you cannot download images using the Android Facebook Apps. Apparently only the browser has figured out how to save images…)
The history page displays missed calls, and sent calls all on one screen. You cannot parse this out. You also cannot delete individual calls. You can erase the entire history or keep the entire history. Poor interface planning. Also, if one person calls you a lot….they will show up for every single entry. There is no way to “stack” the calls from a single person. Again, poor planning on such a capable phone.
Voice quality on the calls is adequate. If you are in a quiet location, you will have no trouble hearing the other person. If you are on a noisy subway platform, in a party, or other loud area, you are better off plugging in the included headphones to have your conversation. You will hear the other party, but not as clearly as you might like.
Finally, I had to try out TimeScape and MediaScape. The all-in-one solution that Sony claims to have perfected in this phone. So perfect was this to be, that Sony kept the old version of Android 1.6 rather than upgrading to 2.1 or 2.2. I was not impressed. I wanted to find a song from an album but all MediaScape wants to show me on the opening screen is recently played, recently added, most played, and shuffle. You have to press one more button to find the album lists. And if you somehow get the wrong album art loaded, no amount of cajoling with get the system to recognize the new and better album art. Weak. I have turned to using MixZing for music and find this app is much better at presenting just the information I need and even shows the player in the Notification bar making access a snap.
TimeScape was fun, but the tiles are not easy to work with. One kind of touch brings them to the forefront. Another kind of touch allows you to jump to the source. Pressing infinity is supposed to link to the other methods of locating that contact. And somehow grabbing the upper left side allows you to delete a tile (the information remains, but only the tile is no longer displayed). I managed to perform this once, and have since lost the magic touch required to remove a tile from the lineup.
Timescape would be a great place to have your home page if it worked all the time. But it sometimes hangs up or hiccups for a second and makes you forget that this is supposed to be a high-spec machine. The spinning and reassembling looks cool the first time, and becomes tedious after a while when you just want the data.
So what about YouTube and Google? YouTube plays wonderfully on the device. The App that handles YouTube gives great results over the high-speed DoCoMo network. But I have been unable to store videos as bookmarks or in favorites. I also cannot download YouTube video to my device using this App. Othewise, no complaints at all about performance or quality of the YouTube App. The Google Map and Google Searches work splendidly. Especially when combined with the GPS and network locating services.
But the keyboard input does not lend itself to praise. The autocomplete and autocorrect are not very good…and that is disappointing considering how difficult it is to land on the tiny keys and always get the letter you want. Turning the phone sideways gives slightly larger keys, but then the page you are typing disappears and you no longer have any hints about what the field is that you are filling in. Only the field is visible–the rest of the page is no longer displayed until you complete your entry or return to portrait mode. I ported the HTC keyboard to the Xperia and experience a much better keyboard, much better autocorrect, and a nicer layout. However, I lost the ability to input Japanese characters and there was no quick method to switch to the Japanese keyboard from the HTC keyboard. However, this proves to me that the limitation is in the App, and not in the device.
Battery life was much shorter than on my existing DoCoMo cell phone. But of course, using the SmartPhone for every feature I was placing much greater demands on the battery. At least I can purchase a spare battery that I can swap when the juice runs low. With a lot of download access, GPS, WiFi, and 3G access, I found that I get about 9 hours of use. After a few charge cycles, I can now even get upwards of 12 hours (with less use of 3G, WiFi, and GPS). But still nothing stellar. I would like to be able to go at least 24 hours without a charge and still have decent use of 3G, the GPS, WiFi, etc.
The screen looks marvelous, even with the original screen protector in place. Removing the obvious screen protector reveals a sticky screen that seems to collect greasy fingerprints and scratches. At first, I thought the scratches in the screen were in the glass, but on close inspection, there is another screen protector beneath the upper, obvious one that is intended to be removed. This lower level protector is much harder to remove, but it can be removed if you work from the edges. This lower protector is thick and apparently is not present in all markets. It is definitely on the Japan phone.
With all of these issues, you might think this phone is not worth the effort. But it does have a bright side. It is the infinite updateable, upgradable device…so any flaws should be easy to overcome with a simple App download right Well….
If you want more real estate and more features on your desktop, you can turn to?apps like “Home++”, “Panda Home”, “Open Home”, “atHome”, “SweeterHome”, “DxTop”, etc. I tried Home++ and Panda Home and liked them very much. Great features and awesome ideas for interfaces. Really well thought out. But they seemed to slow down overal performance of the phone an cause additional non-specific hangups. I removed them from my phone despite my great interest in their features.
I also tried several dialers. Some improved on the way calls were handled, but none had superlative interfaces. I liked “JBook 2″ the best of these for handling English and Japanese contacts. It has alphabet on the left and hiragana on the right.
If you don’t mind lower res photos, Toy Camera produced nice images and somehow allowed the shutter process to work more efficiently. (Probably because of the smaller file size, images saved faster, improving performance).
Juice Defender and Juice Plotter were great additions to help solve the battery drain problem. But these also gave me interesting non-specific errors that were difficult to repeat. I have removed these programs for the time being to help identify the culprit of my non-specific problems.
And “MyDoCoMo” allowed me to view my bill in real time. A real bonus.
Where MediaScape fell short, “MixZing” came to the rescue. An awesome app to control and play your music.
Raziko is a great way to get all your FM stations in noise-free perfection. Even better than an FM tuner and you can listen while on the subway platform. Goes beyond regular radio since the screen displays the program and sometimes even the song playing.
As an update to this brief review, I took my phone in to DoCoMo today to have it replaced with an identical model. This was to hopefully solve a series of random Force Close errors and stuck clock in the status bar. I will give this new phone another couple of weeks. But I don’t think this is the phone for me. I may just have to revert to my old standby Keitai and part with this attempt at smart phone.
Only time will tell.
Aloha, Dylan
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