A Quick Look at Sony Ericsson's Forthcoming Handsets

Sunny Singapore, at the very recently opened Resorts World convention center in Sentosa Island, was the venue for Sony Ericsson’s latest announcement. They showcased a slew of new handsets that will soon be making their way to our shelves under the slogan, 'Evolve, Engage and Excite'. Although the handsets have already been announced we can expect them anytime within the next couple of weeks. Although I can’t say too much about the overall functionality of the handsets since all that were available were prototypes. Here’s a quick look at what’s heading our way.

Xperia X10
First on the list is the much awaited Android running X10 that stole the show. Employing Sony Ericsson’s new design concept called the ‘Human Curvature design’ the Xperia X10 is a rather large device. However it’s neither the device nor the otherwise basic Android OS that makes it so unique. What does make it unique is the UI that has been created for it that could make it worth a serious consideration. Two distinct yet similar interfaces have been developed to enhance the handset’s multimedia and Social Networking capabilities. Timescape is an elaborate interface combining facial recognition technology with plenty of social networking access directly from your contacts section.

MediaScape sorts out all your online and on-board media and categorizes it seemingly well enough to make it easy to look for. MTV is also one of the new brand partners with SE and intend to have their very own app loaded onto the handset with exclusive content. The 1GHz processor seemed speedy enough to handle all functions well enough.

Other features include -

• a 4-inch Scratch-resistant touchscreen with 480 x 854 pixels and 65k colours
• 3G (HSDPA, HSUPA), EDGE/GPRS,
• Wi-Fi (DLNA supported), Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB 2.0 (micro)
• GPS with A-GPS support for Google Maps (trial version of WayFinder preloaded), GeoTagging
• 8MP camera (LED flash) featuring face and smile detection
• 3.5mm handsfree port
• 1GB internal storage plus microSD card support (memory might be included, yet to be confirmed)

Xperia X10 Mini and Mini Pro
Trust the Mini editions of the X10 to live up to their names. They are indeed miniaturized versions of the X10, so small in fact that they easily fit into the palm of your hand. Both run on Android platforms and come preloaded with the Timescape interface. Mediascape is not part of this deal. The handsets offer plenty of connectivity. The Mini Pro’s slide out QWERTY is an added advantage for speedy texting. Like Nokia’s N97 and its Mini counterpart, the keypad has individual keys that are spaced out evenly. Unfortunately these Android handsets also come sans sufficient video codec support. Even� these small handsets bear the ‘Human Curvature Design’ Sony seems extremely proud of.

These are the common features both X10 Mini’s include -

• a 2.5-inch Scratch-resistant touchscreen with 240 x 320 pixels and 16 million colours
• 3G (HSDPA, HSUPA), EDGE/GPRS,
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB 2.0 (micro)
• GPS with A-GPS support for Google Maps (trial version of WayFinder preloaded), GeoTagging
• 5MP camera (LED flash)
• FM radio
• 3.5mm handsfree port
• microSD card support (memory might be included, yet to be confirmed)

All three of these Android devices feature Google Maps with the new Street View. Since that is still a major work in progress for India, we’ll have to settle for just plain old Google Maps. HTC may have quite a fight ahead as SE could make serious waves with these new Android handsets. Of course it all depends on the one final aspect – price. That has yet to be announced though. However, a little birdie told me that we may not have to worry too much about affordability as these handsets just might leave our wallets a little less worse for wear as compared to some others in their class.