[XPERIA X1 General] keiitastrophic:
Long post - To help you understand where I am coming from and my situation to better assess what I'm looking for

I've read pretty much all the stickies, and the newbie section regarding questions but I didn't really get answers. Though I did learn a lot, but I'm still a little confused. I find some threads messy, in terms of instructions, and descriptions. Not forgetting the existance of compilation threads. Of course, kudos to everyone here for making awesome apps and roms.

I'm a student from Singapore, and I finally got my dream phone, which is the X1, my first smartphone, from a friend. Barely a few months old and still under warranty. So I'm pretty much a newbie in terms of smartphones, firmware, apps and all that. Been using it for about a month now, got a few minor scratches from wear and tear so it's no biggy, but the keyboards a lil faded, peeled. I'm not sure how to describe it, some letters are just a blob without the 'paint' on to denote it, and the slide-up screen's a little loose.

I started off getting apps like PockeTwit for Twittering to play around. Then I stumbled upon XDA forums. I started off 'boosting' my phone's capabilities with TuneUp, XperiaTweak, VModeSwitch, SKTools, R3A Camera Update, SRS WOW sound thingy. Probably the same way you would do to a PC with certain OC programs and whatnot. Then I installed that Manilla program thing, and now my UI's pretty much like a HTC. Which is awesome might I add. A little laggy, may not be perfect, but it's still great. Thereafter I found out about firmware, WinMo 6.5, issues with it, custom ROMs. Read about how to flash, break it down before flashing custom ROMs into it, which is easy actually. I'm deciding between the Touch-It ROM and the SE-X1 xPERT one because it already has all the goodies in it. More inclined to Barebone one even, then later installing the goodies I want.

I'm looking for one that would look great, with minimal lag, with all the goodies to help me keep it in check and upgrades. (I do understand that there will definitely be a little lag in smartphones due to it's hardware and how we upkeep them as owners.)

Here comes the questions.

1. I would like to change the keyboard to a new one and tighten the sliding-screen. Would SE do that? And would it be free due to warranty?

2. If I were to flash a custom ROM in, would it void my warranty? (Assuming I do it before sending it to SE to fix above problems)

3. Which ROM should I get? I like the goodies that come in the xPERT ROM, but I also like the HTC UI from the Touch-IT ROM. Is there a way to maybe integrate the two? (I'm assuming it would lag less if the UI was integrated into the ROM rather than having it as a seperate installation like I have now)

4. Which would be after the first three are settled, is with games. I've seen the phone's capabilities and what not around, with emulators for the PS1, fullscreen games like Palm Heroes, PDiablo and all that. I've tried them all but I just can't seem to get them all to work, am I doing something wrong?

5. Panels, the whole point of the X1 would be its panels. But I just can't seem to find any. I've searched google, lists, pretty much everywhere. All I see are the official released ones from SE. The most I found, being custom, was the Youtube panel which I got to work. Is there really a lot of panels out there?

[Edit - More questions in Post #5]

That's all the questions I can remember for now, it's pretty late. I'll put up more in the thread or post if I can remember.

Thanks in advance!