Flashback: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 or why the X-Panels weren't superheroes

25 August 2019
The first Xperia phone didn't run Android - in fact, the whole thing was built around hiding the clunky OS it did run.

Sort by:

  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • I8m
  • 25 Aug 2019

Anonymous, 25 Aug 2019Sony Ericsson feature phones were better than symbian imo. ... moreTheir feature phones better than Symbian? You sony fanatics are worse than apple fans.

    Correction: N97 had a 360x640 resolution display, not 360x480

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • aXL
      • 25 Aug 2019

      AnonD-762416, 25 Aug 2019Fairly laggy is a big understatement.:D SE phones were so l... moreSony Ericsson feature phones were better than symbian imo.
      Never lagged even at full storage. Then came android and they started falling back.


      Still, xperias before the split were much better. I've had many Sony Ericssons back in the days and had positive experience with them, mostly. Can't say the same about Sony.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • u7V
        • 25 Aug 2019

        Anonymous, 25 Aug 2019That's utter nonsense.. Sony Ericsson phones were perfec... moreI had T10, T20, T630, K610, W810, X1, xperia Z. T630 dpad broke down after 8 months, camera button W810 not working after 1 year, X1 back cover prone to scratch, xperia Z hardbrick after 6 months. Sony quality is really bad

          • M
          • MisterG
          • JDr
          • 25 Aug 2019

          I still have this phone laying around and it still works :)

            • ?
            • Anonymous
            • m@g
            • 25 Aug 2019

            AnonD-762416, 25 Aug 2019Fairly laggy is a big understatement.:D SE phones were so l... moreThat's utter nonsense..

            Sony Ericsson phones were perfectly snappy. Also their "feature phone" OS actually was capable of real multitasking. Way ahead of competition.

            I've had T630, K750i, G502, C702, Vivaz, Xperia Arc and they were all quality, problem free products, even the Vivaz.

              • s
              • sony lover
              • RJ7
              • 25 Aug 2019

              I m very miss this se xperia x1 silver version...i play astraware tradewinds 2 on this device using their pen...i m very love this device but slider qwerty keyboard is hard to press make me stress and sell this device haha

                • D
                • AnonD-762416
                • m2A
                • 25 Aug 2019

                S Yu, 25 Aug 2019...This was my first smartphone, it was, of course fairly l... moreFairly laggy is a big understatement.:D SE phones were so laggy I'd even fall to answer phone calls in time because the dialer UI took almost half a minute to load.

                  • S
                  • S Yu
                  • gjD
                  • 25 Aug 2019

                  ...This was my first smartphone, it was, of course fairly laggy and the keyboard broke down from too much texting but got me hooked to QWERTY.

                    • D
                    • AnonD-731363
                    • SnY
                    • 25 Aug 2019

                    Had many Sony Erricsson phones before and they were great apart from last one U8i Vivaz which cost me a fortune but failed to impress and every few days or weeks went under repair due to frozen touch screen or keyboard.
                    In 2 years of lasting warranty the phone worked not more than a 2-3 months without service centre strike.
                    After 2 years i gave up on a paid repair and bought new phone from Huawei.

                      AnonD-771260, 25 Aug 2019HTC was top brand at that time, you could expect a lot! Eve... moreI remember seeing the iPhone (2G) and comparing it to the beast HTC TYtN II, and laughing.

                      And not too long, there was the HTC Touch Pro which was a more refined Titan2.
                      I wasn't a fan of the Touch Pro2 or the Sony-Ericsson variants, and the HTC Dream/G1 came out as more hype than substance. Still these were still better than the frustrating Symbian devices (Samsung Omnia, Nokia N97) of its day. And after a couple updates, the iPhone 3G was a serious contender in the market. It was at this point, I figured Blackberry was dead, Windows Mobile was dead, Symbian was dead. The N900 was promising but MeeGo was a Work-In-Progress. The Palm Pre looked very good, I figured it would roll out everywhere soon, but it wasn't available worldwide. So I instead got the Motorola Cliq/Dext.

                      Next all phones were under serious competition from the iPhone 3GS, which just kept getting faster, lasting longer, and getting more features as the time went on. Nothing materialised from Palm and webOS, Nokia was duped from the MeeGo project, and the other ecosystems (Symbian, Blackberry, etc) died just as I anticipated. And the rest of the competitors were way too late to the race like Blackberry's QNX and Windows Phone 7.

                      Although I loved the Motorola Dext, it was soon overshadowed by a tidal wave of Android phones; from the Motorola Droid/Milestone, the HTC Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola Droid2/Milestone2, Motorola Droid3/Milestone3, Motorola Atrix, Samsung Galaxy SII. With the Samsung Galaxy SII finally competing properly against the iPhone 4, I realised this was now a solid duo-poly.

                      Going from 2007 to 2011, the entire industry changed drastically, it was exciting watching!
                      The next years from 2011 to 2014 were interesting. The 2015 year was a dud. And from 2016 to 2020, has been very little innovation, lot's of compromises, and cash-grabs that it's actually boring.

                        I remember this phone, had top specs at that time but WM6.1 was underdeveloped, unoptimized and very slugish, using this phone was like using Windows 10 On Celeron CPU from 2005.

                          • D
                          • AnonD-771260
                          • Ixv
                          • 25 Aug 2019

                          Xperia all the way, 25 Aug 2019Made by hTc. What do yo expect.HTC was top brand at that time, you could expect a lot! Even google chose to start their Nexus phones with HTC back then.
                          Not to forget that year before Sony X1, first iPhone came out. And it changed a lot in cell phone market.

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • Mk3
                            • 25 Aug 2019

                            Xperia X1 wasn't the only xperia to crack. Plenty of later xperias would crack on their own, mainly where there was a narrow bridge of glass like the place above the proximity sensor. The old xperias were quite fine if not for the poor build quality.

                            On the other hand, I still wish windows mobile development never stopped. Modding the device was super easy, I even made customized themes, which only required overwriting png files! Rest in piece WinMo :(

                              I fancied the (first) iPhone as a replacement for my Qtec 9100 (HTC Wizard), but bought the Xperia X1. I still have them gathering dust.
                              Did these devices have hardware buttons, apart from those sliding keyboards!
                              I also have two pieces Velo 500 by Philips, also on Windows (with a uselessly scaled down edition of Microsoft Office preinstalled), a double replacement for a broken one.

                              And yes, Spb software. I had most of their software, purchased through Handango.

                              Windows Mobile was very close to Windows XP, and I remember using a Registry editor to have a certain program run.
                              Microsoft had the mobile market, but let it slip away.

                                • X
                                • Xperia all the way
                                • gN@
                                • 25 Aug 2019

                                Made by hTc.
                                What do yo expect.