CES Live Images: Sony Ericsson Experia X10

Waiting for the Sony Press Conference we were given a chance to look around Sony’s booth. After a quick failed round of Gran Turismo 5, I spotted the Xperia X10. After playing around with the phone I remember that I was actually playing around with Sony Ericsson’s Android phone.

Oddly, one of the best compliments I can give the Xperia X10 after playing around with it for about 15 minutes is that unless you already knew, or were told, it might take you a while to realize it’s Android. That’s actually a good thing in a way. The Timespace app that replaced the home screen if allowed to made it seem quite different. The app places all communication, or media you access, in a timeline with most recent activity at the top. The keyboard is also changed, though it might be a bad change with some confusing buttons that might require some explanation or time to understand (example: the period and the comma are the same “button,” but holding it down doesn’t seem to bring up and option to choose between the two.

The phone’s hardware seemed well built. The button array was a bit off-putting coming from using mainly HTC Android phones, largely because there was no search button to be found, making inputting URLs require two “clicks” rather than one. I didn’t think to check the camera, though the info stand said it had facial recognition that could detect up to 5 faces in any photograph.

Overall, from the few minutes I was able to spend with the phone, I still want more time. The design of the Android GUI is interesting, and the hardware at least seems nice. It might end up that like the first iteration of the Hero, the UI destroys the battery life, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.