What’s in the box:
an X10 phone
a 2gb micro SD card (loaded with software, the real user manual, sample music, video (including a tutorial) and a program to download and install PC software on your PC.) Sometimes two cards, an 8gb if you bought it from SonyStyle. Can have 32GB sd card.
a USB to micro USB connector (that Micro not Mini)
a outlet plug charger that connects to the USB cable
a set of Sony Bass headphones 3.5mm jack
a 3.5mm jacked hands free connector for a 3.5mm headphones (this is a great addition as you can use your favorite phones/buds and have hands free phone calls using this connector).
I now have 2 of these in my ATT Family Plan. While I think the transition from traditional phones to the so-called smart phones causes the user to have to think a bit differently it can be done. Traditinally, we flipped open our phone, touched any key and it answered the call. With a Android based phone we have to unlock it first, and in some cases, press the accept call button. In a traditional phone we have hardware buttons or d-rings to activate functions, and here in the new touch model of interface, we have icons. This one difference can be frustrating to new users. Many android users complain about the number of taps it takes to make a call which can vary from 3 to 5 (or more) depending on how you do it.
The SE X10 is supposed to be the flagship phone for SonyEricsson. In March of 2011, it will be superseded by the X12 which will up it’s hardware specs, that is not to say that the X10 isn’t pretty good in the hardware department. With a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor encased in one of the more stylish designs, and sporting 3 of 6 hardware buttons just for Android, the SE is a very powerful device. Much more comfortable in the hand than a Captivate, it has a rounded rubberized plastic back for holding one that feels great. The screen is mineral glass and I can tell you truthfully that it survives drops on ceramic tiles without damage and has resisted scratches very very well. The screen- even at 64K colors is beautiful in it’s 4? size. Sharp, easy to read, and it shows as well or even better than the AMOLED screens which while more vibrant are not as bright in all situations. A promised software update will bring the screen to a higher color count. *SE announced mid-September that due to performance issues they will not update to 64m colors at this time.
Hardware buttons are one of the commanding features of this phone. Besides a On/Off/Standby/Wake button, there is a dedicated camera and combo volume/zoom rocker button. The zoom rocker does NOT work when the browser is active. Soft buttons serve that function. While again, not being a Nexis there are only 3 other buttons, the Menu/Options, the Home/Active Apps and the Back button. As on many Android phones, access to the application’s settings and such are done via the Menu/Options button. Having spent several hours with a Captivate that has no hardware buttons, I can not tell you how much I like a hardware button – you are certain that you pressed it. I often found myself pressing the Captivate’s soft buttons several times when it didn’t respond. The Menu/Options button will bring up different pop-up menus on the Home screen and all the applications so that you can do simple stuff like Exit, Refresh or even configure the settings. The Home button has two main functions returning you to the Home page or with a longer press: display to you the up to the last 6 apps that are/were last running. This long Home page press is a way to return to the apps that are running in the background. The need to use the Menu button to exit a program, and programs that are automatically started with the Android system (most of which are editable from the Android Applications Settings page) is one of the reasons that people install App Killers. It’s just lazyness to not exit an application once finished, and an app killer fixes that with one tap.
8mp camera: The X10 is a Sony Cybershot in disguise. Digital zoom, Smile Detection with smile size settings, Face Recognition, 12 scene modes or Auto-scene recognition, anti-shake, Geo-tagging, choice of center/spot/average metering as well as single, multi-point or infinite focus make this camera a contender for any travel size camera. Touch to tap subject and you can select any of the multipoint focus selections. If in Smile Detection it will look for any registered (up to 5) faces and focus primarily on that one, and then other faces. Video with a functional but slow auto focus in WVGA mode is available, a HD 720P mode w/autofocus is expected shortly with the firmware updates. While the screen isn’t displaying full color, the photos are video are full color.
Beyond it’s style and the usual Android features, SE with it’s long experience with Java (most of SE’s feature phones are Java OS based) SE has dreamed up two fascinating applications. Timescape and MediaScape. It is these that define the phone’s internals. In the US version, Twitter, Facebook and Google accounts can be merged together with your SMS messages, your on phone photos, your calling list and even the music you listened to into a great timeline. (Non-US versions may have MySpace and/or other services linked.) Timescape can display these with a linked photo of the other party or in the case of your music, album art. It’s a very interesting and beautiful interface with the ‘splines’ or virtual cards, in a vortex that you can scroll via flipping your finger top to bottom or bottom to top. Touch a single card and it displays its content (though perhaps not all the text if the message is long). Press the Infinity button on the card and you will get a listing of all the calls, email, sms, Facebook – interactions that you have had with that person. That is of course if they are properly linked in your phone-book. (An easier linking phone book is promised as an update. Easier can only mean more automatic, since I don’t have a problem linking them manually.) Timescape also allows you to view each stream of data individually, so you can view Facebook or Twitter streams by themselves as well as SMS, email, calls, and photos, via a carousel lineup of icons at the bottom. Timescape generally runs all time in the background. You can configure how often it updates from Never, 15 minutes to 3 hours. It can be killed with an app killer like ‘Advanced App Killer’ to improve the battery life. It can also be your Home Screen. Timescape however can be a performance bog, if you find that you would rather use a Twitter app such as Twitdryod or the Facebook app, there’s no need for another program to do these updates. You can deregister your accounts from Timescape.
MediaScape is a pretty good interface for your media files. Comprised of 5 rows of Album Art or photo/video thumbprints, it shows the “Recently Played”, “Recently Added” “Favorites” “Most Played” and a Shuffle line of icons that can be swiped sideways to find a particular photos. While there are 3 icons on the bottom like the Timescape app showing Music, Video, Photos, they don’t slide into position and are just tapped to bring up the instances (unlike Timescape’s moving selections). Photos can bring up your Picassa and Facebook oneline photos as well as your photos contained locally. If the online photos are albums they show the album’s default photo, and you can tap into that to see the details. A bad thing is that none of the online albums are stored locally and the phone has to download all the materials again, and again. On the other hand this could be a good thing since it doesn’t waste any internal storage or SD card storage with lots of thumbnails. I have over 300 albums online and 28K photos on one of my accounts.
MediaScape also has a more mundane list mode, where you can find your media via type, artist, album or track name. The phone has no equalizer or SenseMe feature. The supplied earbuds have terrific Bass sound though I find them personally a bit wide in diameter.
Like many android phones, the sms messages and other notices flash across the notification bar which on the X10 is a bit narrow even when the screen is locked. It’s said that it will be a bit fatter in the later updates. Notifications also flash the multi-functional LED on the upper left of the screen Green Flashing is a notification which shows even when the screen has blanked. Red/Red Flashing for ‘need to recharge’ and when charging, it goes from yellow to solid green. When plugged in the unit is always on, you have to go deep into the Android settings to turn this behavior off. The power button short press will wake or put the screen to sleep. Long press will either start the phone or bring up a menu to turn on Silent mode, toggle Airplane Mode or Power Off.
Unlike the un-updated Captivates and some of the Euro ROMS for the X10, the ATT ROM is PERFECT for both WiFi and GPS issues. (Reports are mixed on the Galaxy S’s 2.2 froyo fixing GPS and Wifi issues.) The phone will automatically switch from 3G to WiFi and will turn the GPS on and off as needed by applications that use location services. However since it is only Android 1.6 rather than 2.1 or 2.2 there are missing features due to the OS level. HD Video, and a 16 million color screen are among those. However, ‘professional’ reviews have down-checked the device because of it ahving 1.6. SE is between a rock and a hard place as far as software updates. They don’t want to release a buggy or performance hindered update such as those that Samsung has done. So they have been indeterminate about the release date, moving it back and forth, committing and then saying they were wrong and moving that date back. (Oct 25-30 looks like the final timeframe.) Additionally once they release the ROMs, the various carriers will then modify it and go through quality checks for the changes and further delay the updates to the users. As of this writing, I don’t expect that ATT will release a new rom until late 2010. The phone can be debranded fairly easily, this will make the SE update software available from SE’s website update with the ‘generic’ rom sooner. Debranding will free your phone’s internal storage of the ATT apps that are forced on you but not unlock the sim card. Rooting is also possible. The phone has 1GB of internal storage. Even after adding updated Google apps and about 10 more apps, I still have 500mb of storage internally.
One of the few issues with the phone is WPA with MS-Chap or EAP-PEAP authentication. This is common on Android phones. I can tell you emphatically that it works perfectly with WPA2 with AES or TKIP (TKIP is unsecure and you should use AES instead) automatically. Unlike the Captivate the phone does not have “N” wireless, which is a shame. The MS-CHAP, EAP should be fixable with some of the apps on the market which give you deeper access to the WiFi settings such as PEAP, RSN, CCMP, Phase 2 keys, etc. “Full Wifi” being just one such app. You create the connection which fails with some of these or just manually via the app, to get the right configuration. The support is there, it’s just that the basic GUI doesn’t allow access.
AT&T is looking to screw you with your data plan, so unless you have a grandfathered unlimited plan, the 200mb plan won’t last you 10 days of playing around unless you have a wifi connection available all the time. Even then you MUST go into the Wireless Settings menu/Advanced Settings and turn on WiFi ‘ALL THE TIME’ because when the phone is screen locked, it uses 3G to update everything. So all your facebook, NYT, Twitter, Weather etc., updates are going to end up on 3G. Toss in a couple YouTube videos and Natigator runs, and you will be at your 200mb limit. Locking to wifi will cut the battery a bit (15-18 hours) but you’re going to be plugging this thing in everyday anyway. Luckily for me, I live in Metro NY where the cable company Cablevision and Comcast and TWC have gotten together to share thousands of wifi spots wherever their cables are run through train and bus routes, town centers, parks and recreation points. Since there’s little HSPA outside of NYC itself, the AT&T uses UMTS which is only about 4mb down at best, ususally 2.5 or less. CV’s OOL wifi service is usually 3mb, so it’s faster, and doesn’t cost me extra. AT&T’s data plan will get you access to AT&T’s hotspots, the $15 is basic service (Starbucks and McD’s) the $30 service will add most airport and some hotels access. You need to create a ID on AT&T’s website that you can use on the hotspots.
Another issue you might read about online is call quality or loudness. Unfortunately the unit doesn’t have dual microphones for great noise cancelling, and in a crowded room or on the street, noise are not removed. I have not found volume a issue and I can raise the phone’s volume to a level that I can hear. Speaker phone is okay to listen, but the party on the other side may feel you’re talking out of a hole or closet.
Very long calls are not comfortable on your ear with the flat glass front IMHO with any of these phones. I had one 50 minute call the other day that left me rubbing mine. If you use bluetooth devices or the supplied hands-free wired device this or the call levels or the noise cancellation should not be an issue. It is expected that the newer android release will bring more bluetooth features to the phone, such as the ability to share the phonebook with a bluetooth device.
The SE X10 multi-tasks quite well. The most lag I’ve ever noticed has more to do with the custom predictive keyboard; Swiftkey that I downloaded and it’s momentary lag with the servers it uses for predictive text. (It’s so good at predicting, that only one or two letters usually shows the word I want and it remembers odd words like user names. I had a modest SMS that required 12 key presses -”surely it’s not a problem”. It is however, complete spyware because of that, and you need to switch to the base Android keyboard for login and when you’re typing anything like a CC number. I have had all my stuff setup prior to using the ‘predictive’ keyboard. And it tells you that it is going to have that info on the servers if you use it to input it, when it installs, and asks if you really want to install it.) The standard Android phone keyboard isn’t bad but a bit narrow in the keys for me with my fat thumbs. It also has predictive text with upto 12 word choices.
Browser: a standard browser is included. It has a couple interesting features. Since there is no MT on the device, zooming is done with soft buttons that appear at the bottom of the screen. There is also a full page view button. Loading a page can automatically zoom and lock on a columnar text in the web page making it very easy to read. The screen is beautiful to read even the smallest type, btw. A adjustable rectangle is a ‘lens’ to slide around the page and zoom where you want. Tapping on any web page photo will bring the photo up in a separate display with it’s own zoom and next/previous controls. Opera Mini is also available, and uses a single tap to zoom in and icons to zoom out.
Lack of MT – is it a problem? No not really. With the right keyboard, even the fastest typist can type since the SE is so responsive. I am not the fastest two thumb typer, and I gave the phone to a ATT employee who tried my alternate keyboard and thought it was better than what’s on the iPhone they used, and that it was extremely responsive in both the portrait and horizontal positions. I had seen them text someone between customers, before I asked them to test for me. If you game, I don’t except for card games and the like, and the game requires MT, you can’t use this phone. Zooming on photos is not a problem, and the lens mode on the browser works fine, as well as the soft zoom buttons. It is expected that more complete double-tap and long press for zoom will be implemented i n the next release.
So bottom line, what’s the opinion. This is a great phone. Any shortcomings are due the Android version or ATT’s desire to make more money and locking out aspects of the base OS or Sony’s own apps. OS mods are available on the market to fix the high end WiFi authentication issues. There are modifications that SE has made that overcome many of the issues of Android 1.6 in terms of functionality. It is believed that the 2.1 update will also overcome the performance issues of the release and include some aspects of the 2.2 Froyo release. It is expected that SE will release 2 more ROM releases, 2.1 and an upgraded 2.1 that has further improved the SE User xXPerience (UXP) before January 2011. Any hope for 2.2 may not happen until March 2011 when the next generation X12 should be on the market in some parts of the world.
ATT has removed or modified the following on the phone:
(removed) Sony Sync app/settings –
Sony Sync is a web based server to synchronize your phone’s settings and all your personal information like contacts, calendar, notes and bookmarks. It’s much like Google’s sync which is still on the phone. Sony is using Sync to allow you to export and then import contacts, etc., into a new phone and they support many of their competitor phones such as Blackberry, Palm, Nokia. Sony Sync interferrs with ATT’s own Sync service which they charge $1.99/mo. CSR’s at ATT tell me that people sign up for sync the month they buy a phone, sync the old phone, sync the new phone and then cancel.
Side Loading Applications
You can get Android apps from somewhere other than the market on the web, ATT locks this out. However, you can put the phone into USB debug mode and if you can download a app to your PC and hook up the phone you can put apps on it using either the Android SDK or if you’ve setup your phone on your PC correctly, Android Central’s Sideloader app which uses a small subset of the Android SDK to install apps on the phone. The USB debug mode has not been locked out. It’s a PITA however.
ATT Navigator is installed, it doesn’t interfere with anything, Google Maps and Google’s Navigator with layers and Latitude work fine.
All the major new Google apps work, except for a newer GMail app which is closer to the chrome version and the Google Docs app which require higher versions of Android. (You can have: Google Maps, Navigator, Latitude, Voice Search, Shopper, Google Googles, Starmap) There’s google talk IM as well as all the major IM sites in one application. Google voice search is also on the home screen.
Facebook works fine. Opera Mini works fine; double tap for zoom since there is no two fingered pinch gesture on the phone. Easy to browse Facebook photos. Other more exotic browsers are available from the market.
Cingular’s WebTV and Mobile TV are available as well as an YouTube app.
There’s no Flash support at this point due to the OS.
*Update: since I got my phone at a SonyStyle store, I got a free extra 8gb card with an sd adapter, which I used. The box had the 2gb card, too. Using the 8gb’s SD adapter card, I put my 2bg into my PC and it wanted to load software for the phone. Investigation shows that the 2GB card was preinstalled with PCCompanion SE’s software for PC. Some MAC compatible software is on the SE website. In addition, the user manual, demo and tutorial videos, music and album art is on the phone, as well as a few sample photos. IMO just copy the card to your ‘bigger card’ or if you wish, you can omit the CCBrowser and PCCompanion folders. The phone needs to reboot to find the User Manual which has a lot of info on how to use the phone and the applications.
Rating: 4 / 5
What’s in the box:
an X10 phone
a 2gb micro SD card (loaded with software, the real user manual, sample music, video (including a tutorial) and a program to download and install PC software on your PC.) Sometimes two cards, an 8gb if you bought it from SonyStyle. Can have 32GB sd card.
a USB to micro USB connector (that Micro not Mini)
a outlet plug charger that connects to the USB cable
a set of Sony Bass headphones 3.5mm jack
a 3.5mm jacked hands free connector for a 3.5mm headphones (this is a great addition as you can use your favorite phones/buds and have hands free phone calls using this connector).
I now have 2 of these in my ATT Family Plan. While I think the transition from traditional phones to the so-called smart phones causes the user to have to think a bit differently it can be done. Traditinally, we flipped open our phone, touched any key and it answered the call. With a Android based phone we have to unlock it first, and in some cases, press the accept call button. In a traditional phone we have hardware buttons or d-rings to activate functions, and here in the new touch model of interface, we have icons. This one difference can be frustrating to new users. Many android users complain about the number of taps it takes to make a call which can vary from 3 to 5 (or more) depending on how you do it.
The SE X10 is supposed to be the flagship phone for SonyEricsson. In March of 2011, it will be superseded by the X12 which will up it’s hardware specs, that is not to say that the X10 isn’t pretty good in the hardware department. With a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor encased in one of the more stylish designs, and sporting 3 of 6 hardware buttons just for Android, the SE is a very powerful device. Much more comfortable in the hand than a Captivate, it has a rounded rubberized plastic back for holding one that feels great. The screen is mineral glass and I can tell you truthfully that it survives drops on ceramic tiles without damage and has resisted scratches very very well. The screen- even at 64K colors is beautiful in it’s 4? size. Sharp, easy to read, and it shows as well or even better than the AMOLED screens which while more vibrant are not as bright in all situations. A promised software update will bring the screen to a higher color count. *SE announced mid-September that due to performance issues they will not update to 64m colors at this time.
Hardware buttons are one of the commanding features of this phone. Besides a On/Off/Standby/Wake button, there is a dedicated camera and combo volume/zoom rocker button. The zoom rocker does NOT work when the browser is active. Soft buttons serve that function. While again, not being a Nexis there are only 3 other buttons, the Menu/Options, the Home/Active Apps and the Back button. As on many Android phones, access to the application’s settings and such are done via the Menu/Options button. Having spent several hours with a Captivate that has no hardware buttons, I can not tell you how much I like a hardware button – you are certain that you pressed it. I often found myself pressing the Captivate’s soft buttons several times when it didn’t respond. The Menu/Options button will bring up different pop-up menus on the Home screen and all the applications so that you can do simple stuff like Exit, Refresh or even configure the settings. The Home button has two main functions returning you to the Home page or with a longer press: display to you the up to the last 6 apps that are/were last running. This long Home page press is a way to return to the apps that are running in the background. The need to use the Menu button to exit a program, and programs that are automatically started with the Android system (most of which are editable from the Android Applications Settings page) is one of the reasons that people install App Killers. It’s just lazyness to not exit an application once finished, and an app killer fixes that with one tap.
8mp camera: The X10 is a Sony Cybershot in disguise. Digital zoom, Smile Detection with smile size settings, Face Recognition, 12 scene modes or Auto-scene recognition, anti-shake, Geo-tagging, choice of center/spot/average metering as well as single, multi-point or infinite focus make this camera a contender for any travel size camera. Touch to tap subject and you can select any of the multipoint focus selections. If in Smile Detection it will look for any registered (up to 5) faces and focus primarily on that one, and then other faces. Video with a functional but slow auto focus in WVGA mode is available, a HD 720P mode w/autofocus is expected shortly with the firmware updates. While the screen isn’t displaying full color, the photos are video are full color.
Beyond it’s style and the usual Android features, SE with it’s long experience with Java (most of SE’s feature phones are Java OS based) SE has dreamed up two fascinating applications. Timescape and MediaScape. It is these that define the phone’s internals. In the US version, Twitter, Facebook and Google accounts can be merged together with your SMS messages, your on phone photos, your calling list and even the music you listened to into a great timeline. (Non-US versions may have MySpace and/or other services linked.) Timescape can display these with a linked photo of the other party or in the case of your music, album art. It’s a very interesting and beautiful interface with the ‘splines’ or virtual cards, in a vortex that you can scroll via flipping your finger top to bottom or bottom to top. Touch a single card and it displays its content (though perhaps not all the text if the message is long). Press the Infinity button on the card and you will get a listing of all the calls, email, sms, Facebook – interactions that you have had with that person. That is of course if they are properly linked in your phone-book. (An easier linking phone book is promised as an update. Easier can only mean more automatic, since I don’t have a problem linking them manually.) Timescape also allows you to view each stream of data individually, so you can view Facebook or Twitter streams by themselves as well as SMS, email, calls, and photos, via a carousel lineup of icons at the bottom. Timescape generally runs all time in the background. You can configure how often it updates from Never, 15 minutes to 3 hours. It can be killed with an app killer like ‘Advanced App Killer’ to improve the battery life. It can also be your Home Screen. Timescape however can be a performance bog, if you find that you would rather use a Twitter app such as Twitdryod or the Facebook app, there’s no need for another program to do these updates. You can deregister your accounts from Timescape.
MediaScape is a pretty good interface for your media files. Comprised of 5 rows of Album Art or photo/video thumbprints, it shows the “Recently Played”, “Recently Added” “Favorites” “Most Played” and a Shuffle line of icons that can be swiped sideways to find a particular photos. While there are 3 icons on the bottom like the Timescape app showing Music, Video, Photos, they don’t slide into position and are just tapped to bring up the instances (unlike Timescape’s moving selections). Photos can bring up your Picassa and Facebook oneline photos as well as your photos contained locally. If the online photos are albums they show the album’s default photo, and you can tap into that to see the details. A bad thing is that none of the online albums are stored locally and the phone has to download all the materials again, and again. On the other hand this could be a good thing since it doesn’t waste any internal storage or SD card storage with lots of thumbnails. I have over 300 albums online and 28K photos on one of my accounts.
MediaScape also has a more mundane list mode, where you can find your media via type, artist, album or track name. The phone has no equalizer or SenseMe feature. The supplied earbuds have terrific Bass sound though I find them personally a bit wide in diameter.
Like many android phones, the sms messages and other notices flash across the notification bar which on the X10 is a bit narrow even when the screen is locked. It’s said that it will be a bit fatter in the later updates. Notifications also flash the multi-functional LED on the upper left of the screen Green Flashing is a notification which shows even when the screen has blanked. Red/Red Flashing for ‘need to recharge’ and when charging, it goes from yellow to solid green. When plugged in the unit is always on, you have to go deep into the Android settings to turn this behavior off. The power button short press will wake or put the screen to sleep. Long press will either start the phone or bring up a menu to turn on Silent mode, toggle Airplane Mode or Power Off.
Unlike the un-updated Captivates and some of the Euro ROMS for the X10, the ATT ROM is PERFECT for both WiFi and GPS issues. (Reports are mixed on the Galaxy S’s 2.2 froyo fixing GPS and Wifi issues.) The phone will automatically switch from 3G to WiFi and will turn the GPS on and off as needed by applications that use location services. However since it is only Android 1.6 rather than 2.1 or 2.2 there are missing features due to the OS level. HD Video, and a 16 million color screen are among those. However, ‘professional’ reviews have down-checked the device because of it ahving 1.6. SE is between a rock and a hard place as far as software updates. They don’t want to release a buggy or performance hindered update such as those that Samsung has done. So they have been indeterminate about the release date, moving it back and forth, committing and then saying they were wrong and moving that date back. (Oct 25-30 looks like the final timeframe.) Additionally once they release the ROMs, the various carriers will then modify it and go through quality checks for the changes and further delay the updates to the users. As of this writing, I don’t expect that ATT will release a new rom until late 2010. The phone can be debranded fairly easily, this will make the SE update software available from SE’s website update with the ‘generic’ rom sooner. Debranding will free your phone’s internal storage of the ATT apps that are forced on you but not unlock the sim card. Rooting is also possible. The phone has 1GB of internal storage. Even after adding updated Google apps and about 10 more apps, I still have 500mb of storage internally.
One of the few issues with the phone is WPA with MS-Chap or EAP-PEAP authentication. This is common on Android phones. I can tell you emphatically that it works perfectly with WPA2 with AES or TKIP (TKIP is unsecure and you should use AES instead) automatically. Unlike the Captivate the phone does not have “N” wireless, which is a shame. The MS-CHAP, EAP should be fixable with some of the apps on the market which give you deeper access to the WiFi settings such as PEAP, RSN, CCMP, Phase 2 keys, etc. “Full Wifi” being just one such app. You create the connection which fails with some of these or just manually via the app, to get the right configuration. The support is there, it’s just that the basic GUI doesn’t allow access.
AT&T is looking to screw you with your data plan, so unless you have a grandfathered unlimited plan, the 200mb plan won’t last you 10 days of playing around unless you have a wifi connection available all the time. Even then you MUST go into the Wireless Settings menu/Advanced Settings and turn on WiFi ‘ALL THE TIME’ because when the phone is screen locked, it uses 3G to update everything. So all your facebook, NYT, Twitter, Weather etc., updates are going to end up on 3G. Toss in a couple YouTube videos and Natigator runs, and you will be at your 200mb limit. Locking to wifi will cut the battery a bit (15-18 hours) but you’re going to be plugging this thing in everyday anyway. Luckily for me, I live in Metro NY where the cable company Cablevision and Comcast and TWC have gotten together to share thousands of wifi spots wherever their cables are run through train and bus routes, town centers, parks and recreation points. Since there’s little HSPA outside of NYC itself, the AT&T uses UMTS which is only about 4mb down at best, ususally 2.5 or less. CV’s OOL wifi service is usually 3mb, so it’s faster, and doesn’t cost me extra. AT&T’s data plan will get you access to AT&T’s hotspots, the $15 is basic service (Starbucks and McD’s) the $30 service will add most airport and some hotels access. You need to create a ID on AT&T’s website that you can use on the hotspots.
Another issue you might read about online is call quality or loudness. Unfortunately the unit doesn’t have dual microphones for great noise cancelling, and in a crowded room or on the street, noise are not removed. I have not found volume a issue and I can raise the phone’s volume to a level that I can hear. Speaker phone is okay to listen, but the party on the other side may feel you’re talking out of a hole or closet.
Very long calls are not comfortable on your ear with the flat glass front IMHO with any of these phones. I had one 50 minute call the other day that left me rubbing mine. If you use bluetooth devices or the supplied hands-free wired device this or the call levels or the noise cancellation should not be an issue. It is expected that the newer android release will bring more bluetooth features to the phone, such as the ability to share the phonebook with a bluetooth device.
The SE X10 multi-tasks quite well. The most lag I’ve ever noticed has more to do with the custom predictive keyboard; Swiftkey that I downloaded and it’s momentary lag with the servers it uses for predictive text. (It’s so good at predicting, that only one or two letters usually shows the word I want and it remembers odd words like user names. I had a modest SMS that required 12 key presses -”surely it’s not a problem”. It is however, complete spyware because of that, and you need to switch to the base Android keyboard for login and when you’re typing anything like a CC number. I have had all my stuff setup prior to using the ‘predictive’ keyboard. And it tells you that it is going to have that info on the servers if you use it to input it, when it installs, and asks if you really want to install it.) The standard Android phone keyboard isn’t bad but a bit narrow in the keys for me with my fat thumbs. It also has predictive text with upto 12 word choices.
Browser: a standard browser is included. It has a couple interesting features. Since there is no MT on the device, zooming is done with soft buttons that appear at the bottom of the screen. There is also a full page view button. Loading a page can automatically zoom and lock on a columnar text in the web page making it very easy to read. The screen is beautiful to read even the smallest type, btw. A adjustable rectangle is a ‘lens’ to slide around the page and zoom where you want. Tapping on any web page photo will bring the photo up in a separate display with it’s own zoom and next/previous controls. Opera Mini is also available, and uses a single tap to zoom in and icons to zoom out.
Lack of MT – is it a problem? No not really. With the right keyboard, even the fastest typist can type since the SE is so responsive. I am not the fastest two thumb typer, and I gave the phone to a ATT employee who tried my alternate keyboard and thought it was better than what’s on the iPhone they used, and that it was extremely responsive in both the portrait and horizontal positions. I had seen them text someone between customers, before I asked them to test for me. If you game, I don’t except for card games and the like, and the game requires MT, you can’t use this phone. Zooming on photos is not a problem, and the lens mode on the browser works fine, as well as the soft zoom buttons. It is expected that more complete double-tap and long press for zoom will be implemented i n the next release.
So bottom line, what’s the opinion. This is a great phone. Any shortcomings are due the Android version or ATT’s desire to make more money and locking out aspects of the base OS or Sony’s own apps. OS mods are available on the market to fix the high end WiFi authentication issues. There are modifications that SE has made that overcome many of the issues of Android 1.6 in terms of functionality. It is believed that the 2.1 update will also overcome the performance issues of the release and include some aspects of the 2.2 Froyo release. It is expected that SE will release 2 more ROM releases, 2.1 and an upgraded 2.1 that has further improved the SE User xXPerience (UXP) before January 2011. Any hope for 2.2 may not happen until March 2011 when the next generation X12 should be on the market in some parts of the world.
ATT has removed or modified the following on the phone:
(removed) Sony Sync app/settings –
Sony Sync is a web based server to synchronize your phone’s settings and all your personal information like contacts, calendar, notes and bookmarks. It’s much like Google’s sync which is still on the phone. Sony is using Sync to allow you to export and then import contacts, etc., into a new phone and they support many of their competitor phones such as Blackberry, Palm, Nokia. Sony Sync interferrs with ATT’s own Sync service which they charge $1.99/mo. CSR’s at ATT tell me that people sign up for sync the month they buy a phone, sync the old phone, sync the new phone and then cancel.
Side Loading Applications
You can get Android apps from somewhere other than the market on the web, ATT locks this out. However, you can put the phone into USB debug mode and if you can download a app to your PC and hook up the phone you can put apps on it using either the Android SDK or if you’ve setup your phone on your PC correctly, Android Central’s Sideloader app which uses a small subset of the Android SDK to install apps on the phone. The USB debug mode has not been locked out. It’s a PITA however.
ATT Navigator is installed, it doesn’t interfere with anything, Google Maps and Google’s Navigator with layers and Latitude work fine.
All the major new Google apps work, except for a newer GMail app which is closer to the chrome version and the Google Docs app which require higher versions of Android. (You can have: Google Maps, Navigator, Latitude, Voice Search, Shopper, Google Googles, Starmap) There’s google talk IM as well as all the major IM sites in one application. Google voice search is also on the home screen.
Facebook works fine. Opera Mini works fine; double tap for zoom since there is no two fingered pinch gesture on the phone. Easy to browse Facebook photos. Other more exotic browsers are available from the market.
Cingular’s WebTV and Mobile TV are available as well as an YouTube app.
There’s no Flash support at this point due to the OS.
*Update: since I got my phone at a SonyStyle store, I got a free extra 8gb card with an sd adapter, which I used. The box had the 2gb card, too. Using the 8gb’s SD adapter card, I put my 2bg into my PC and it wanted to load software for the phone. Investigation shows that the 2GB card was preinstalled with PCCompanion SE’s software for PC. Some MAC compatible software is on the SE website. In addition, the user manual, demo and tutorial videos, music and album art is on the phone, as well as a few sample photos. IMO just copy the card to your ‘bigger card’ or if you wish, you can omit the CCBrowser and PCCompanion folders. The phone needs to reboot to find the User Manual which has a lot of info on how to use the phone and the applications.
Rating: 4 / 5