Old phones are funny.
But new ones are awesome. I got a new phone last week, the Sony Ericcson Xperia X10, and I've been thrilled with it. It has a gorgeous screen, a wicked-fast processor and runs Android 1.6, which really isn't all that bad. I'm still anxiously awaiting the update (here is a possible preview--try to ignore the music, it's horrible, and skip over the first two minutes as they're useless) but it's not like the 1.6 OS is a hindrance to use. It is fast, smooth, and takes anything I can throw at it: videos on Youtube are loaded in an instant, huge web pages become simplified and still look great in the standard browser provided with the phone, and I can flick through my own music, movies, and pictures without a moment's hesitation. I even prefer the standard browser over Opera Mini. It's just easier to use, not sure why.
The only thing that disappointed me about this phone was its standard QWERTY text entry method. There was no option for T9, which was an idea that was difficult to get used to, considering I had just grown to love the BlackBerry's TrueType keyboard--which made for wicked-fast text entry with one hand (while also driving, eating, or etc). And here I was with this new spiffy phone, huddling over the screen and concentrating with a furrowed brow just so I could type without any errors. It felt so wrong! The landscape keyboard was a little better since the keys became larger, but still--I shouldn't need two hands to type all the freaking time if I don't feel like it.
This was quickly remedied with a bit of searching around on various techy forums and the discovery that it was indeed possible to change my keyboard style to a regular T9, similar to one that you would see on a bar phone (actually, this is a replica of the keyboard on the HTC phones--instructions can be found here). Hurray! All I had to do was download a file, extract it, get an app installed on my phone, then transfer those files over to my phone and install everything and open it, and voila--a fucking awesome new text-entry method in ten minutes. It has cut my texting time in half, at least. It even has tactile feedback when you hit a button in the form of little teeny vibrations that just feel oh-so-wonderful. This is a testament to the beauty of Android: let's see you do that, iPhone OS's.
And of course, there are the other two tiny little problems that everyone on the internet seems to be talking about with this phone (and occasionally its Mini and Mini Pro brothers): call quality and battery life. I've been using this phone pretty much non-stop the past week, putting it through navigation on Google Maps, playing music, and doing whatever I can to make the battery die, and it would still last for a large chunk of the day. And this was in the first few days of its life, when battery life was supposed to be atrocious. As of now, it's gone through a few charge cycles, and I can tell you this: battery life is definitely improving. I can now easily last a day while still using it a fair amount. Everyone out there complaining that they can't go a whole day without a charge needs to shut the fuck up and quit whining. It is a smart-ass phone that does a lot of work whenever you touch it. All those smooth transitions and ultra-fast loads on HD videos? Yeah, that takes some grunt work. Deal with it. Don't just sell your phone after a few days because you don't know how to use an app killer to get rid of stupid, large applications running in the background and sucking up your battery life.
As for call quality, it's been great so far. The only call in which I could barely hear the other guy was when Rogers called me to check on how I was enjoying my new service--pretty sure the guy was calling me from India. At the end of the call he even said "Thank you for choosing Veriz--uhh, Rogers wireless!" Poor guy. Doesn't even know which company he's representing on a given day. I am now certain that this is what really goes on whenever anyone calls customer service.
Let's get to the fun part. Check out my new Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 beside my boyfriend's old Sony Ericsson T616:
Sure it may look outdated, but the T616 was able to do something that my new-ish BlackBerry Storm couldn't: send all contacts via Bluetooth to another phone. The Storm was only able to send about 6 at a time for some stupid reason. And so I had to go the old-fashioned route of copying my contacts to my SIM card, one at a time, and moving them over. A slight hassle, but still. A newer phone should out-perform an older phone in every way (*cough*iPhone4*cough, hack*). I think this may have made the transition from BlackBerry to Ericsson a little easier for me. I fell a little out of love with my Storm that day. And now I don't miss it at all. The fact that this ancient phone out-performed something as new and impressive as a BlackBerry says a lot about this company: they make some damn good products, and have been making them for a long time. I am so glad I chose the X10. It blows pretty much everything else out of the water.
And for more fun, let's look at the first smart-phone released in North America: the hp iPAQ. This makes me curious as to who it was that came up with the letter "i" as a prefix first, Apple or hp?
That is a touch-screen that has been worn out in one spot from a stylus. Remember those? This thing ran Windows mobile, and was capable of handling MSN Messenger while browsing. Pretty amazing.
Oh, and if you don't feel like typing on a QWERTY keyboard with this old beast of a phone, the fix is pretty simple: just take it off.
And that concludes my review of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, with a few little fun bits thrown in at the end. I hope you enjoyed this trip through time. 'Ta!
The only thing that disappointed me about this phone was its standard QWERTY text entry method. There was no option for T9, which was an idea that was difficult to get used to, considering I had just grown to love the BlackBerry's TrueType keyboard--which made for wicked-fast text entry with one hand (while also driving, eating, or etc). And here I was with this new spiffy phone, huddling over the screen and concentrating with a furrowed brow just so I could type without any errors. It felt so wrong! The landscape keyboard was a little better since the keys became larger, but still--I shouldn't need two hands to type all the freaking time if I don't feel like it.
This was quickly remedied with a bit of searching around on various techy forums and the discovery that it was indeed possible to change my keyboard style to a regular T9, similar to one that you would see on a bar phone (actually, this is a replica of the keyboard on the HTC phones--instructions can be found here). Hurray! All I had to do was download a file, extract it, get an app installed on my phone, then transfer those files over to my phone and install everything and open it, and voila--a fucking awesome new text-entry method in ten minutes. It has cut my texting time in half, at least. It even has tactile feedback when you hit a button in the form of little teeny vibrations that just feel oh-so-wonderful. This is a testament to the beauty of Android: let's see you do that, iPhone OS's.
And of course, there are the other two tiny little problems that everyone on the internet seems to be talking about with this phone (and occasionally its Mini and Mini Pro brothers): call quality and battery life. I've been using this phone pretty much non-stop the past week, putting it through navigation on Google Maps, playing music, and doing whatever I can to make the battery die, and it would still last for a large chunk of the day. And this was in the first few days of its life, when battery life was supposed to be atrocious. As of now, it's gone through a few charge cycles, and I can tell you this: battery life is definitely improving. I can now easily last a day while still using it a fair amount. Everyone out there complaining that they can't go a whole day without a charge needs to shut the fuck up and quit whining. It is a smart-ass phone that does a lot of work whenever you touch it. All those smooth transitions and ultra-fast loads on HD videos? Yeah, that takes some grunt work. Deal with it. Don't just sell your phone after a few days because you don't know how to use an app killer to get rid of stupid, large applications running in the background and sucking up your battery life.
As for call quality, it's been great so far. The only call in which I could barely hear the other guy was when Rogers called me to check on how I was enjoying my new service--pretty sure the guy was calling me from India. At the end of the call he even said "Thank you for choosing Veriz--uhh, Rogers wireless!" Poor guy. Doesn't even know which company he's representing on a given day. I am now certain that this is what really goes on whenever anyone calls customer service.
Let's get to the fun part. Check out my new Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 beside my boyfriend's old Sony Ericsson T616:
Sure it may look outdated, but the T616 was able to do something that my new-ish BlackBerry Storm couldn't: send all contacts via Bluetooth to another phone. The Storm was only able to send about 6 at a time for some stupid reason. And so I had to go the old-fashioned route of copying my contacts to my SIM card, one at a time, and moving them over. A slight hassle, but still. A newer phone should out-perform an older phone in every way (*cough*iPhone4*cough, hack*). I think this may have made the transition from BlackBerry to Ericsson a little easier for me. I fell a little out of love with my Storm that day. And now I don't miss it at all. The fact that this ancient phone out-performed something as new and impressive as a BlackBerry says a lot about this company: they make some damn good products, and have been making them for a long time. I am so glad I chose the X10. It blows pretty much everything else out of the water.
And for more fun, let's look at the first smart-phone released in North America: the hp iPAQ. This makes me curious as to who it was that came up with the letter "i" as a prefix first, Apple or hp?
That is a touch-screen that has been worn out in one spot from a stylus. Remember those? This thing ran Windows mobile, and was capable of handling MSN Messenger while browsing. Pretty amazing.
Oh, and if you don't feel like typing on a QWERTY keyboard with this old beast of a phone, the fix is pretty simple: just take it off.
And that concludes my review of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, with a few little fun bits thrown in at the end. I hope you enjoyed this trip through time. 'Ta!