{"id":541432,"date":"2010-04-23T01:42:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T05:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.androidguys.com\/?p=14807"},"modified":"2010-04-23T01:42:32","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T05:42:32","slug":"sony-x10-the-gutreactionreviewtm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/541432","title":{"rendered":"Sony X10 The GutReactionReview(TM)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By: Michael Schmidt<\/a><\/h1>\n

Okay, I\u2019ve had the X10 since 8:30pm last night now (but I had to sleep some) so here is my initial GutReactionReview\u2122. This will be quick, and mostly point form. It\u2019s possible that any \u201cproblems\u201d I list might have solutions, but the whole point is what the reaction of a first-time smart-phone buyer might be, especially if they aren\u2019t too savvy, or know how\/where to solve these things on their own.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Formfactor:<\/strong> The X10 is a \u201cbig\u201d phone in your hand. It\u2019s larger than the Magic for sure, but comparable to the iPhone. It \u201cfeels\u201d big in my hand, a lot closer to the feel of the Palm TX PDA I used to use. Some people won\u2019t like this, and it is taking some getting used to, but I like having a lot of screen real-estate. Despite its size, however, it\u2019s surprisingly light! The Xperia X10 looks<\/em> like a nice phone. while aesthetics are subjective (like art and music) I think most people will like having<\/em> and showing off<\/em> this phone. It has very nice lines, a beautiful big screen, and classy\/modern-looking silver\/steel highlights. The back cover has a nice slightly \u201crubberized\u201d (is that the best word?) feel to it. It\u2019s a little odd having the volume button on the right<\/em> side, but probably only because the volume rocker is on the left<\/em> side of my Magic, and I\u2019m used to it. So, really this is my problem, and not the X10.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Screen:<\/strong> Did I mention the screen is nice and BIG! Great for watching video and looking at photos. If you look close though you can see that the icons aren\u2019t actually \u201csharp\u201d. They look just the slightest bit \u201cfuzzy\u201d around the edges, but only if you look close. However, I did notice it, so others might as well.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Power Button:<\/strong> The power button, at the top, is used not only to power the phone on and off, but to bring it out of sleep mode. I am used to hitting the Menu button on my Magic to do this, and it feels kind of awkward to me. The way you hold these phones when you are using them for anything other<\/em> than making calls, it seems more intuitive to press one of the hard buttons on the front of the phone.<\/p>\n

\u2022 User Experience:<\/strong> This is sort of a catch all area. The X10 comes with some widgets preloaded on the screen (only 3 home screens. C\u2019mon guys, give us more!) including a widget for TimeScape\u2122, and a very nice digital clock widget. Personally I find the \u201cunlock\u2019 sliding graphic kinda of lame, but some people like it. Just a personal thing, I prefer pressing the hard button on my phone to unlock, but I can see how an actual software on-screen onlock can actually be more secure since you can\u2019t accidentally unlock it. There are some minor annoyances throughout, but I will cover them all at a later date.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Keyboard<\/strong>: The X10\u2019s on-screen keyboard is HORRIBLE!!! <\/strong>Trying to figure it out was driving me crazy, especially to get special characters. The keys are smaller then the keys on the Magic\u2019s onscreen keyboard but just enough to make it even harder to see what you are pressing, and to type quickly. To get certain characters, like a comma or exclamation mark, you have to double-tap the period or question mark keys, and if you don\u2019t do it just right, you get two periods or question marks. Unlike the Magic keyboard, there is no key to \u201cclear\u201d the keyboard from the screen. Instead you have to press the Back button on the phone. I had to figure this out on my own. Also, when you are typing the phone suggests so many different words as you type (some which have NO resemblance to the word you are typing) that it is unnecessarily overwhelming. Also hard to see, since they are little grey rectangles with small black font. Strangely, there are settings available for the default Android keyboard in the phone settings, but I could not find anywhere to actually disable the X10\u2019s keyboard in favour of the default Android keyboard! Lame!<\/p>\n

\u2022 Camera<\/strong>: It\u2019s 8 MP, and has a flash. Except, just don\u2019t rely too much on the flash. I haven\u2019t tested the flash myself yet, but Puleen tried it on his demo unit last night, and it didn\u2019t seem very useful. Also, rather un-intuitively, to take a photo you depress the \u201ccamera button\u201d (on the side) half-way to focus, and the rest of the way to take the photo. The problem is, when you have pressed it half-way, it feels<\/em> like you\u2019ve pressed it as far as you can go. It can actually be pressed farther in (harder) but it\u2019s not easy to realize. I gave the phone to two \u201ccommon users\u201d (both of whom have iPhones), and even after I told them about pressing the shutter button harder to actually take a photo they kept saying \u201cI have, it won\u2019t go farther\u201d. They had to press it really<\/em> far in to get it to work, and were surprised by it. If you didn\u2019t figure it out, you\u2019d think the camera wasn\u2019t working. I haven\u2019t had time to do any indepth testing yet, but I will put the camera through its paces and post some of the photos I get.<\/p>\n

\u2022 TimeScape\u2122: <\/strong>An interesting feature. TimeScape is a visual display of your Facebook, Twitter, Email (but not Gmail?!), Photos, Missed Calls, Music, and text Messages. Each one has its own screen (swipe left and right to get at them) and each is represented in a \u201ctower\u201d of floating \u201ccard\u201d that you can swipe up or down. You set up your Twitter and FB accounts, and then set the frequency that they will refresh. Kind of annoying\u2026 it doesn\u2019t seem there is a way to send a Tweet or an FB post from TimeScape directly. Instead you tap on the individual \u201ccard\u201d to which you want to respond and it will open the browser and load the mobile page for twitter or FB. I wish I could tweet directly from TimeScape. TimeScape can also be set as your default \u201cHome\u201d screen (or skin, if you will) so that those floating Twitter, FB, or other feed towers are always on screen. This can be cool for people who are all about the social media thing, but that\u2019s not me. Also, the images used in the Twitter and FB tower feeds seem rather \u201clow-res\u201d and not very impressive.<\/p>\n

\u2022 MediaScape\u2122:<\/strong> MediaScape is very smooth, very slick, and very cool. It\u2019s not even a contest between MediaScape and the default HTC gallery or music player (I don\u2019t have Sense UI, so I can\u2019t compare to that). This is something I would enjoy showing other people when pulling out this phone! Two thumbs up. More on MediaScape when I have time. (For those who don\u2019t know, MediaScape is a photo gallery, music app, video viewer all rolled in to one, and supports adding online services directly. For example in the photo gallery you can directly add support for FB or Picasa, but apparently not Flickr. What!?! Right?!)<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Rogers Stuff: <\/strong>Less of the Rogers stuff that was on the Magic and Dream, but still\u2026 Rogers stuff. The Rogers logo shows on bootup (but that doesn\u2019t really bother me). There is an icon for the Rogers MyAccount app, but the app is not<\/em> actually pre-installed! instead it links to the app in the marketplace. You still have to install it. This replaced the pre-installed icon. There is also a pre-installed \u201cShop\u201d icon, that goes to the usual Rogers sites in the browser. Attention Rogers\u2026 I will never<\/em> use this! Why bother? <\/strong>Rogers also pre-installs an app called UrMusic<\/strong>. It is a music player, but a horrible one. Those of you with the HTC Magic and Dream\u2026 this music player looks worse than that. It\u2019s also pretty pointless since the X10 comes with the MediaScape player that pretty much rolls over UrMusic without even noticing it hit something. I can only assume this app was rushed to be on the X10 in time for launch, but who knows. It seems the only real reason it is there is because you can use it to buy music\u00a0 online (from Rogers?) but it only<\/em> seems to work when you have a 3G\/Data signal so that Rogers can \u201cverify\u201d your device. I was able to connect last night with data on, I assumed my phone was \u201cverified\u201d but now that I don\u2019t have data, it doesn\u2019t let me in. Seems you have<\/em> to buy your music using your data, and not WiFi, I guess so Rogers can make more money when you go over your limit? Maybe Rogers can clarify for us.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it for my quick GutReactionReview\u2122. So far I like the phone in general, but there are some irritants (but don\u2019t all phones have those?). I will write a more in depth review after more use. Leave questions in the comments, and I\u2019ll try to answer them.<\/p>\n

Please visit IWMOPS<\/a> for original review. You can follow Michael Schmidt<\/a> on twitter as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Might We Suggest…<\/h3>\n