Today SonyEricsson held an event in Brussels, mainly targetting Android developers and explaining their strategy with the PlayNow platform. But for me one of the highlights of today’s event was that I could test the soon to be released SonyEricsson Xperia X10, which will run on Android with a custom UI called TimeScape, that integrates with most of the social networks (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook,…).
I have to say I was pretty impressed by the 10 minute test I did on this prototype. Even though the UI was sometimes lagging, it was pretty smooth and very well designed. I hope I’ll be able to do a longer test once the device is production ready, in order to make a better evaluation.
The X10 has a lovely design, its 4 inch capacitive screen is larger than my HTC Magic and has a much higher resolution. The CPU is a fast 1Ghz SnapDragon processor, the camera is 8MP and it apparently even does something with face recognition. It currently is running Donut (1.6) but will get an Eclair update, probably after the release. The phone is also one of the lightest smartphones I had in my hands for years. I’m really looking forward for this device to hit the market as it might be a good replacement for my HTC Magic.
SonyEricsson’s strategy might sound weird as they seem to be doing a bit of everything. They have Windows Mobile, Symbian and are now also focussing on Android. It looks like they don’t want to take the risk of choosing one platform. The X10 will be their flagship Android device, someone from SonyEricsson even told me they’re planning to release other lower-end Android devices as well in 2010!
It may seem to be a weird strategy, but I don’t think it’s a wrong one. As a phone maker you don’t need to have your own operating system (Symbian, Android or the iPhone OS). Today, you can customize a great part of the OS’s and you can give the customer access to application stores and your own applications. Doing ‘a bit of everything’ is (at this moment) a safe play and a way to broaden your reach. I think Sony Ericsson wants to make the difference with its technology, its brand/design and its applications created for the SE-phones.
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