Review Sony Ericsson XPeria X10

The first Android device from Sony Ericsson may have undergone an upgrade in the naming department, jumping from X3 all the way to XPERIA X10 (probably to avoid confusion with Nokia's X3 handset), but what lies under the hood is reassuringly in line with what we've been hearing. That is to say, a 1GHz Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm, wide 4-inch capacitive touch display, 8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a thoroughly tricked out Android skin named Rachael. Sony Ericsson stressed to us the symbiotic importance of both the new flagship device and "open OS" UI -- the X10 was presented as the patriarch of a whole new family of handsets, which we can expect to see in the first half of 2010, all sporting the beauty of Rachael and perhaps helping to bridge the gap between featurephones and, well, more advanced featurephones. So don't be shy, come along past the break to see our uncensored first impressions of both, along with hands-on video and pictures.

Gallery: Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 announced, we go hands on

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We have to start off by noting that Sony Ericsson is calling its modified Android version the UX for now -- meaning User eXperience -- although we suspect it will revert to the more familiar Rachael naming scheme as soon as the lawyers have cleared a few hurdles and cashed a few checks. Part of a big "open OS" push by the company, this new interface will make appearances on a number of future handsets, both of the Android and Symbian persuasion, though Windows Mobile support sounded like something SE might consider only if there's much public demand for it (so much for a proper X2 successor, eh?). You'll find the full PR and exhaustive spec sheet in the gallery below.

Gallery: Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 press release and spec sheet

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Android the Sony Ericsson way

There are three central modifications that Sony Ericsson has made to the default Android 1.6 installation, beyond the obvious visual overhaul. Taking the lead is Timescape, a spiritual sibling to the MOTOBLUR, which aggregates all of your communications on the phone, whether they be Tweets by your favorite NASA astronaut, missed and placed calls, received text messages, or Facebook status updates. It's all there, in one big gorgeous integrated pileup. Naturally, all that can be filtered by source or by person, making for a seamless environment for interacting with your friends over the otherwise quite fragmented social networking space. Mediascape does the same for the media on your phone, presenting what you have available locally or online, and making track suggestions on the basis of the song you're listening to or stuff it has discovered your friends like via their communications with you. Finally, there's face recognition, which automates photo tagging by recognizing your friends after the first time you tag them, and also allows you to call someone by simply tapping on their face when viewing a picture.