[XPERIA X1 General] pgamble:
Well ... 8 months of anticipation with highs and lows as we heard new stuff and I finally got to play with an X1 at a Vodafone store.

First thoughts .... very narrow ... obviously the 3" wide screen feels smaller than the equivalent 2.8" normal aspect ratio.

The build ... well ... although I'm sure the front is metal ... but the black one at least looks like a brush plastic ... it didn't have the standout quality feel I was led to believe. The chrome / polished metal or metal look plastic around it's waist and the edges of the keyboard definitely looks a little bling to me ... again ... doesn't look / feel like expensive kit.

You open the keyboard ... and as I'd noticed in pictures, there is a much larger gap around the waist than a TyTN or TyTN II. This looks a little odd. There is also far more play on the front edge of the mechanism that the TyTNs. Clearly a different type of mechanism ... but to me ... the open close and solidity is not as solid as either my TyTN or TyTNII. It feels more like my 8GB N95 before I had the slide replaced.

So ... in short ... for me at least ... the 'quality' of finish is not evident. Where as in practise it maybe as good or better than the TyTN II... as the TyTN II has no pretence to being made of metal etc ... it gives a more honest quality feel about it. This was a huge surprise to me ... particularly given my wife's T650i with mineral glass really does feel kind of special.

Anyway ... for me the talk of massive quality over the HTC devices is a myth.

Looking into the device ... The panels ... I kind of liked and the basic ones that come out of the box seemed to work well and perform fine. The delays only seemed to be graphical transition ... i.e. synthetically imposed. I'm sure the delays others mentioned maybe there ... when playing harder ... but there was nothing I noticed in the 15 minutes I played.

Memory has been confirmed by others now ... I just saw what had already been shown in screen shots.

Opera fails to open ... but on this one apparently just because there was no comms (no SIM or active wireless) .... I think when you use the panel browser that launched PIE without error ... again .. not Opera as others mentioned.

The keyboard ... initial feeling was ... very positive. I found the keys nicely spaced and noted there was a definite tactile feedback ... you knew you'd successfully hit the key. When trying to type ... I kept missing keys ... so it was a lot slower and less predictable than the TyTNII. I'm not sure ... this may just be experience with something different .. if so ... aside from the missing arrows and for me .. the CTRL key that no device has ... I'd very more than happy. It certainly felt more solid and reliable than the TyTNII keyboard which on occasion made me think one or two keys may pop off (they never did).

The Dpad ... for me ... it seemed fine. I had no problems with the up press at all ... possibly slightly less movement than the other directions but plenty nevertheless. The optical ... I agree ... it is too recessed to be useful. If there was a mouse pointer like you get with the BT Stowaway mouse ... or the 4700 touchpad ... then it may get more use.

Other buttons ... ok ... but to be honest ... not as good quality feel as I got with my TyTNII ... the V1615 variant (people complained about movement of the buttons ... but I never really had that issue).

The camera ... well stills seemed ok (at least with the zoom available on the screen) ... the video on the other hand was worse than rubbish. It may well have had the VGA resolution ... but it's response / refresh was so poor that anything that moved ghosted. This makes little sense because on paper it should have been as good as the N95 ... aside from the optics of course (i.e. the movement should have been crisp). This really means that it is no more useful than the TyTNII camera .... it doesn't offer you a viable carry anywhere camcorder which the N95 did. What a waste.

My general feel was that it didn't feel like a poor PDA (slow ... tatty) ... but it didn't really feel (even with the WVGA which felt too small) like a real improvement over the TyTNII. Massive disappointment.

I guess I will try the HD ... but without a soft dpad (which I'm told by Clove who had a near finished one in the other day ... is almost definitely not there). They also said there was no evidence of TV-Out - although the HTC guy suggested it maybe different with the final version ... I think that is unlikely .. things don't change that quickly.

So ... I probably won't invest in that either.

My only hope now is that the Galxy7 does actually get released. Given the rumours were for end October announcement ... I'm not feeling confident there.

Just to summarise ... the X1 is a good device when compared to what is currently out there ... what it isn't is the standout device - quality or performance wise - that 8 months of marketing and rumour as well as the massive price suggested.

Paul.