Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Launch in Malaysia

I have been eying this phone long ago, as long as 2 years back when there was already a speculation that SE would be producing Windows Mobile phone.

Few days ago, I received this newsletter...

Same newsletter was forwarded to by few other friends. Seemed like they were all excited and perhaps hoped I burnt a big hole in my pocket, sigh~ What a friend to be?! :P Some more there was an SMS as early as 7:20am! Since I was on my way to another exhibition in KL, so I decided to make a stop over to check out this phone.

Arrived at 1U and checked with the information counter, the launch was outside of the building and saw the banner...

Queue up here for the contest...

If you enlarge the newsletter, you can see the details of the contest. I arrived around an hour later, so I guess the discount from RM250 up to RM1500 have been grabbed by others. I heard someone came and queued a night before the event to get the first place up front! :-| Well, it may be worthy if can get RM1500 voucher, else I rather spend the time on my bed. Read the terms and conditions here...

The ceremony was over when I arrived, left an empty stage...

That's just nice for me as I intended to avoid the crowd. Still some curious customers checking out the phone at the sales counter...

Of course, how could miss out the event chicks, but err...

And here is the main course, the SE Xperia X1, the first ever Windows Mobile phone by SonyEricsson...

The official spec...

And the real phone on my palm...

The back, a 3.2MP camera equipped with only a photo light (not photo flash)...

The build quality was pretty good, better solid feel than HTC Touch Pro. This could be due to the material, X1 was all round metal aluminum whereas HTC was plastic. However, the button area wasn't like the body, it's made of plastic and the buttons were not really good to press, felt very fragile that the button might be dropped off from the phone. May be the one that I had was already been tough-tested by many others.

Slide up and the QWERTY keyboard reveals...

I used the keyboard for an SMS testing...

It takes time to get used to it. The feedback from the key was not as bad as other tech reviews claimed when the reviewers tried on the prototype units. I am a BlackBerry user and had few chances to try on HTC Touch Pro keyboard, I would prefer the Blackberry 3G 8707 QWERTY keyboard. HTC's and X1's keyboard are a little wider that I needed to take time to think which of my thumbs were the easiest thumb to reach the key at the middle, such as R and T keys. Like I said, perhaps it takes time to adjust.

A comparison of my dated HP rw6828 with the latest X1 on my palm...

Hmmm... HP rw6828 was actually the "maximum size" that I could tolerate for a phone in my pocket. Further, the performance on X1 was not impressive and a bit laggy especially after few launches of other programs like calendar and camera. This was expected because the operating system is still Micro$oft platform, and with the 3D live X-Panel, that explained the lag. I guess the performance will only be improved after the first release of ROM upgrade, just like what happened to HP, O2 and HTC PDA phones. I like the camera though, with touch focus feature where you can touch anywhere on the screen and make the camera focuses on the object that is not at the center of the view finder (screen). This feature is not seen on other PDA phones, like the closest contender, the HTC Touch Pro.

Price? RM3199 cash or credit card, both black and silver available. You only carry back the phone with a free 4GB microSD card, no other freebies and no 0% installment plan. I would recommend visit Sony Center or any other phone dealer for better deal, it should be widely available now. I asked the sales chick to give me discounts and I would buy it right away. She said "Price is fixed ler, cannot give discount wor, but can give free gift lor." And this was the free gift...

So at the end, I walked away with a SE... not phone but balloon. Hehe!