Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 Review

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Written on 7:53 AM by poison_ivy


It seems that Vodafone will indeed carry the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 in the next couple of weeks. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 is the follow up to Sony Ericsson's first windows mobile phone, the X1. This time around, the Xperia X2 has an upgraded OS, slightly bigger screen, and a much bigger camera resolution. Let's see if X1 users would want to upgrade to this mobile phone.

DESIGN

In terms of design, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 seems to be a let down compared to the Xperia X1 mainly because Sony Ericsson decided to use more plastic on this mobile phone. There's a four row QWERTY keyboard which is much more tactile than the ones on the Motorola Milestone and even the Samsung B7610 OmniaPro. The Xperia X2 is also slightly thinner in terms of thickness and width compared with the B7610.



Overall, the sliding mechanism is much more solid too and the width is just right so that I don't feel like I'm carrying a huge handset. The Xperia X2 still retained a lot of metal especially in the back to make this mobile phone a sleek looking handset.

Sony Ericsson retained the optical directional pad which is great because it gives users the option of having arrow keys while in portrait mode, an option which is lacking on the B7610.

FEATURES

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 runs Windows Mobile 6.5. Unlike the HTC Pro2 or the Samsung B7610 which did their best in hiding Windows Mobile, Sony Ericsson opted to make their panels sort of an icing. Meaning you can choose to use it or not and the UI doesn't really go deep so this can either be a blessing or a course depending on how much you like/hate WinMo. For me, it's okay though I still prefer HTC's TouchFlo 3D but those who miss the old Windows Mobile interface would definitely love the X2.



Screen responsiveness is okay though I don't know why for the life of me, is opening some applications more laggy compared with the Diamond2, which shares almost exactly the same hardware: 528MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM. The screen auto rotation doesn't even have any animation and SE did a lousy job of implementing the auto rotation on this device.

You can access the Xperia Panels interface by pressing the shortcut button right below the call button on the left side. The Xperia Panels is really pretty, I'll tell you that. Sony Ericsson incorporated their media library which can be found on all Sony Ericsson phones. I really don't know the useability of the Panels such as Pixel City, which basically is an animated city and displays status icons such as battery status, missed calls, etc all over the city. It's an eye candy alright but you have to make use of your stylus most of the time in order to press any of the notifications.

The Tilewave panel is another eye-candy panel. The tilewave panel is just a bunch of moving squares, also with notifications. The most useful panel is probably the SPB mobile shell. It's a whole new homescreen for your handset and is tons better than the standard WinMo 6.5 homescreen.

PHONEBOOK AND MESSAGING


I love the Xperia X2's phonebook compared with the Samsung B7610. Why? Because this is one of those instances where I miss the old Windows Mobile interface when inputting my contacts. SE's phonebook is also much more visually appealing compared with the B7610.

The Messaging application on SE Xperia X2 features the old windows mobile threaded messaging which is simpler to look at compared with Samsung's but isn't really that much finger friendly. There's also an onscreen keyboard in case you don't want to use the physical keyboard. The onscreen keyboard is pretty useable and doesn't give you a headache when typing. The added optical directional pad also makes it ideal for one hand texting.

MULTIMEDIA and WEB BROWSER

I really like Sony Ericsson's media gallery on this handset. The photo gallery is great and allows you to scroll through your photos via finger sweep. It would even allow you to rotate your photos even without turning your phone in landscape or portrait mode.



Audio quality through speakers is pretty loud but is average when compared with the audio quality on the iPhone. The audio player is quite nice, similar to the audio player on most Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. You can organize your music by playlists, albums, authors, etc. Unfortunately, Samsung's Touch player beats the audio player on this one as the latter has equalizer presets.

The Xperia X2 supports DivX playback with subtitle support and watching videos is nice although I'd advice against watching videos in direct sunlight because you'd probably wont' see anything.

Unfortunately, like most Windows Phone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 doesn't have a lot to boast about in terms of web browsing capabilities. You have the regular internet explorer which seems much slower on this handset compared with IE on B7610. The good news is that IE supports flash, bad news is that it seems YouTube won't be supporting PocketIE even with flash in the future.

CAMERA

I wasn't able to download the sample shots I've taken with the Xperia X2 but the 8 megapixel camera seems pretty awesome. You can shoot picture by using the touchscreen focus or the dedicated camera button on the right side of this phone. There are also a lot of in camera options such as white balance, macro mode, geo tagging, etc. Like Samsung's camera phones, there's an option for shooting images with just text on it (useful for students who rely on copying their classmates' notes).

CONCLUSION

Design-wise I really love the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2. I've longed for a directional pad on newer Windows Mobile handsets and only the Xperia X2 has this feature. The Xperia Panels is also nice though I hope that in future updates, Sony Ericsson would do what HTC did and maybe try their hand at customizing the old Windows Mobile UI though not completely overdo it like what Samsung did. An 8 megapixel camera is also a first for a Windows Phone so those looking for a camera phone/smartphone might be interested in this handset. Sure, it's laggy at times but there've been rumors that Sony Ericsson would soon fix these bugs around March so hopefully, the batch of Xperia X2's coming to Vodafone wouldn't have these issues. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 is a promising phone except that knowing Sony, the price for this handset would probably have a premium and those looking for a better bang for their buck would be wise to look at the Motorola Milestone or if you're a WinMo fan, the Samsung B7610 is way cheaper and has a better CPU.

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Free Virgin Mobile to Virgin Landline calls

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Written on 3:15 PM by poison_ivy

Nice. Looks like Virgin Mobile is trying its best to lure in customers. According to tweets between BBC's Click team and Virgin reps, starting April 1st, the company will be offering free calls between its landline and mobile, dispelling those per minute charging.

This should be very useful for some who still uses landlines because of weak mobile phone signals either in their basements or in their general area. Hopefully, this move will help improve sales for Virgin Mobile, this and probably some newer phone models, Virgin and you'll be top of the mobile phone game in no time.

Source: Engadget

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Pink Mobile Phones under £50

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Written on 1:00 PM by poison_ivy

Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away. Tired of the usual roses, chocolates, or love notes to give your special someone? Well in this day and age what better way to express your love than through a pink mobile phone? And e2save has these clearance pink mobile phones that are just under £50.

SONY ERICSSON W205



Network: GSM 900/1800 (will not work in US)
Weight: 96g
Screen Size: 1.8 inch 65k colour screen
Memory: 5MB expandable up to 2GB with Memory Stick Micro
Camera: 1.3 megapixel with video recording function
Connections: Bluetooth, USB
Other Features: FM Radio w/ RDS, MMS, Opera Mini Browser, Walkman phone, TrackID music recognition Recommended For: Music lovers

SAMSUNG C3050




Network: GSM 850/900 /1800 /1900 (will work in US)
Weight: 86g
Screen Size: 2.0 inch 65k colour screen
Memory: 15MB expandable up to 8GB with MicroSD card
Camera: 640x480 pixels with video recording function
Connections: Bluetooth, USB
Other Features: FM Radio w/ RDS, MMS,Web Browser, Mobile Tracker, Voice Memo
Recommended For: Fashionistas

SAMSUNG B3310



Network: GSM 850/900 /1800 /1900 (will work in US)
Weight: 101g
Screen Size: 2.0 inch 256k colour screen
Memory: 40MB expandable with MicroSD card
Camera: 2 megapixels with video recording function
Connections: Bluetooth w/ A2DP (for streaming audio through Bluetooth headset), USB
Other Features: FM Radio w/ RDS, MMS, Web Browser, Organizer, Voice Memo, slide out QWERTY keyboard
Recommended For: Text addicts, budding photographers, people young at heart.

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Motorola Milestone coming soon on Orange?

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Written on 8:00 AM by poison_ivy

So, the rumors are true, if Vodafone will get the Google Nexus One and the Xperia X10, then Orange's new Android mobile phone will be the Motorola Milestone. Carphone Warehouse and E2Save already has the Milestone in their coming soon page and E2Save (still a carphone warehouse affiliated company)only has Orange as the mobile phone provider.

Of course, on Orange's official website, the Motorola Milestone is nowhere to be seen but considering that they already have the Motorola DEXT, it's not so far fetched that they too will carry the Motorola Milestone.

Source: e2save and Carphone Warehouse

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 coming to Vodafone in April

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Written on 11:13 AM by poison_ivy


Looks like Vodafone is jumping on the Android bandwagon. Vodafone UK has recently announced that they will be offering the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 in April.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is Sony Ericsson's first Android powered mobile phone and features 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 8.1 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, UX platform, and Android 1.5. The latter isn't something to jump about considering that the Google Nexus One (a phone which Vodafone also claimed to be releasing "in the next few weeks") has Android 2.1 but the 8.1 megapixel camera and UX platform may entice Android fans.

There's no pricing yet and April is 2 months away so by the time that the Mobile World Congress comes along, Sony Ericsson may decide to bump it to the latest version of Android.

SOURCE: AVING.net

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Mobience QWERTY keyboard for smartphones

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Written on 1:46 PM by poison_ivy

Ever wanted to have an all around keyboard for all of your touchscreen gadgets? Well, mobience has developed a "smallQWERTY" keyboard which can be used for smartphones for MIDs (mobile internet device).

The concept is cool especially if the keyboard can work across all devices. Plus its pretty small compared with the current Bluetooth keyboard available in the market.

Now only there's a mobile case which can house this universal keyboard and any touchscreen phone of your choice.



Source: Aving

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Samsung B7610 OmniaPro Review

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Written on 11:30 AM by poison_ivy


Okay, so I longed to review the B7610 ever since it was first announced together with the Omnia 2. I loved the first Omnia and the only thing missing, for me, was a physical keyboard. When the Samsung B7610 was announced, I thought it was the answer to my prayers, so, was it? Read further.

DESIGN

Having owned the Motorola Milestone, everything seems to feel like a "brick". The Samsung B7610 does feel huge and heavy compared with the Milestone but the good thing is that it's slightly thinner and weighs a bit less than the Nokia N900. Every surface is also a fingerprint magnet from its 3.5 inch screen to the glossy red back. But what's great about the B7610 is that Samsung didn't scrimp on its design. It's a brick alright, but its an elegant kind of brick, thanks to its metal-like highlights and brushed metal effect.





On top of the phone you can find the 3.5mm headset jack and the microUSB port. On the right is the screen lock button and the camera button, on the left is the volume rocker and the dedicated button for switching between the "work or life" homescreen. Unlike the i900 Omnia and the Omnia 2, the stylus doesn't come separately, instead, it is housed on the top right portion of the handset.

The sliding mechanism does give an assuring click when opened and closed, unlike the Milestone but the screen feels wobbly when opened. I hope that doesn't pose a problem in the long run. There's a four row QWERTY keyboard which is adequately spaced though sometimes feel flat. Good thing Sammy put in audio feedback for the keyboard as every press of the keypad, there's a resounding "click".



Overall, considering that the Samsung B7610's thickness is standard in today's landscape QWERTY phones, I'd give it an A for effort in terms of design.

USER INTERFACE

Like the Samsung Omnia 2, I'm a bit torn about its UI. In Winmo 6.5, touchwiz 2.0 is pretty much set in stone, meaning you can't turn it off without some sort of registry hack so this is a bit of a turn-off for winmo users who are all too familiar with the standard winmo ui. For first time winmo users, touchwiz 2.0 may come as a blessing because it makes the phone more user friendly.

The touchscreen is very responsive and kinetic scrolling is fluid. Of course, this is a windows mobile phone so occassional lags is expected. Although I must admit that the B7610 seems much more laggy compared with the HTC Diamond2 and Touch Pro2.

The Samsung B7610 comes not with one, two, nor three, but with FOUR homscreens. And I'm not just talking about homescreens with different wallpapers but TOTALLY different homscreens. First is the standard widget homescreen with the widget sidebar and three different screens to put your widgets on. This is called Samsung's "life" homescreen because its casual and can be customized according to the user's preference.



The second homescreen is the Samsung "work" homescreen because it is more suited for businessmen. The work homescreen is similar to the old winmo homescreen but more "pretty". You get a professional looking homescreen and shortcuts to your email, calendar, and connections.



The third one is the standard winmo 6.5 homescreen which is similar to zune. You get vertical panels with options which you can scroll through horizontally. It's pretty and simple.



The fourth one is the VERY OLD school windows mobile homescreen. It's ugly but long time pocket pc users will feel right at home.



MESSAGING

Like the Blackberry, Windows Mobile is known for its messaging prowess. Setting up emails is as easy as entering your email address and password and the B7610 does the rest. You can sync your Outlook contacts via Activesync or your work contacts and calendar via Exchange Server which the B7610 supports.

Threaded text messaging is supported although the text messaging application is one of the ugliest I've seen so far in smartphones. I hope Samsung remedies this in the future with updates. Trust me, Samsung, the combination of green, orange and black is unappealing to the eyes.

The onscreen keyboard is a joy to type on. I'm typing this review on the Samsung B7610 using the onscreen keyboard and I've had more mistypes on the Milestone than on this handset. My only wish is that there's directional buttons on the onscreen keyboard as well so I can have the complete touchscreen experience.

MULTIMEDIA

The Samsung B7610 has a 3.5 inch AMOLED screen so colors are very vibrant. The phone supports DivX playback and watching a 356MB divX file is no problem and is like watching HD TV on your hand.

The music player is awesome and I like the coverflow like interface in landscape mode. Audio quality through the speakers is okay but gets tinny in high volumes. The included headset is okay and audio quality gets better if using the headset.

WEB BROWSER AND CONNECTIONS

The Samsung B7610 is HSDPA, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and TV-Out, so connection is not an issue. It also comes with Samsung's DLNA technology which will allow you to connect with other products that has DLNA support (haven't tried it though).

You can choose to connect to the Internet via Internet Explorer or Opera Browser. Internet Explorer supports Flash but both browsers are considerably slow compared with the browser on the iPhone, Motorola Milestone and Nokia N900. However, the browser does its job if you have the patience to wait for pages to load.

BATTERY LIFE

So far so good. Battery life seems okay, will probably last 1 1/2 day. Right now, I still have 2 bars left but that's a good thing considering that I've used it extensively and even typed half of this review on this mobile phone.

CAMERA

The Samsung B7610 has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. The camera is faster than on the Milestone but I don't know whether its a software glitch or not but previewing photos on the mobile phone itself looks grainy. Anyways, here are some sample shots in low light conditions without flash, and in brighter areas, the mountain picture is the wallpaper on my monitor so the lines is not due to the camera but because the picture is taken from a monitor.





PROBLEMS

One of the problems I've encountered, aside from the standard WinMo interface being gone, is that it seems Samsung automatically closes some applications, thus rendering multitasking ineffective. Whenever I try to run the music player in the background while trying to access another application, the player automatically stops playing mid-song. Also, when I exit Internet Explorer to go to another application, instead of IE running in the background, it automatically closes when I try to return back to it via the task switcher. It would have been okay if IE, like the browser on Android, saves your previously visited page before closing but it takes you back to your homepage. I'm hoping there's a fix somewhere that I haven't seen. Will probably visit some forums soon.

CONCLUSION

If I haven't used the Motorola Milestone, I probably would be satisfied with the Samsung B7610 but as it is, I've tried a lot of smartphones before this so it's mildly disappointing. No, it's not just Android vs. WinMo, I've had a better user experience on the Diamond2 and Pro2, maybe TouchWiz 2.0 over WinMo 6.5 without the option of turning it off just turned me off or maybe I'm getting tired of WinMo. Of course, I haven't had a chance of installing any custom ROMs so I'm not completely writing the B7610 off. The Samsung B7610 does have a lot to offer

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Samsung Jet Ultra Edition?!

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Written on 1:04 PM by poison_ivy

Hmmm, looks like Samsung is gearing for another touchscreen phone. If the people at carphone warehouse is to be believed, it seems that there's a "yet to be released" Samsung Jet Ultra Edition.

Carphone Warehouse is enticing its affiliates with the Samsung Jet Ultra Incentive wherein two lucky affiliates who generate the most sales will win the "coming soon" phone.

Of course, not much is known about the Samsung Jet Ultra Edition since if you do a google search, you'll get the old Samsung Jet results results. And it seems that this Samsung Jet Ultra Edition has almost the same specs as the previous Samsung Jet: 3.1" Amoled screen, 800Mhz processor, 5 megapixel camera with DVD like video recording, HSDPA, WiFi, Integrated Social Networking and Active Sync. Now the last feature seems to suggest that the Samsung Jet Ultra Edition will be a windows mobile phone because Active Sync is only available for WinMo phones.

But the thing is, the Samsung Jet and the Samsung Omnia 2 are like brothers but with different OS so why bother releasing a Samsung Jet Ultra Edition with Windows Mobile if the Samsung Omnia 2 is already in the wild? So maybe the Samsung Jet Ultra Edition will just have a more appealing design? Then again, it may also have a capacitive touchscreen to make it WinMo 7 ready.

Source: Carphone Warehouse Affiliate newsletter (check link for "enticing its affiliates")

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