SonyEricsson Readies Android Phone
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 11/3/2009
Raleigh, N.C. - SonyEricsson's first Android-based smartphone, the Experia X10, will be available in the U.S. during the first quarter for use in 3G HSPA networks.
The Experia X10 operates on U.S. 3G HSPA networks and will be available in the first quarter.
The X10 will be the company's first full-touchscreen phone,
lacking a hard dialing keypad or hard QWERTY keyboard, a spokesman said. and it
will incorporate two features not available on previous SonyEricsson devices.
One, called Timescape, consolidates all types of messages with
a particular person, whether SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter or pictures, the company
said. The other, called MediaScape, consolidates the access of music, photos and videos stored on the phone
itself or available on YouTube or, potentially, on Sony's PlayNow site, where consumers
download such items as ringtones, wallpaper, music and applications. The
PlayNow site, however, isn't available to U.S.
consumers yet, and it wasn't certain whether it would be available to U.S. consumers in time for the X10 launch in the
U.S.
The device will be the company's second in the U.S. with 8.1-megapixel camera, but it will be the company's first phone worldwide to incorporate the company's UX (user experience) platform, which runs on top of Android and will be available to run on future SonyEricsson phones based on other OSs, the company said. The user interface is promoted as combining entertainment features, applications, social-media integration, and a rich graphical user interface.
The device will download apps from the Android Market, but it could potentially download apps from the SonyEricsson's PlayNow site as well.
SonyEricsson is developing one X10 that runs in 3G mode in the 900/1700/2100MHz bands, making it suitable for use on the U.S. T-Mobile network. The other version, suitable for use on the AT&T network, runs in 3G mode in the 800/1900/2100MHz bands. The 2100MHz band is used by European HSPA networks. Both models also operate internationally in quad-band EDGE mode.
The phone features 4-inch 480 by 854-pixel (WVGA) scratch-resistant touchscreen, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, assisted GPS, included 8GB MicroSD card, MicroUSB port, 3.5mm audio jack and a host of Google applications, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps with Street View, Google phone-top search, Google search widget, Google Talk, Google Voice Search and YouTube.
Camera/camcorder features include 16x digital zoom, face recognition, smile detection, geo-tagging, image and video stabilizer, photo and video light, and photo and video uploading to the Web.
Music features include MP3/AAC music playback and TrackID.
The phone will be available in black or white.
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