Sony Ericsson smartphones — Android or otherwise — generally come down to two things: above-average hardware hobbled by overreaching, underpowered software. And that trend continues with the Xperia X10. (See our previous hands-on with the X10.)
After the break, we take a look at the X10’s better half — the hardware. The X10 sports a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 4-inch TVT LCD touchscreen, 1GB of ROM/512MB of RAM, and an 8-megapixel camera. Oh, and one thing we didn’t bother with — testing multitouch — because the phone just won’t do it. Period. That’s not a deal-breaker, but … We’ll tackle the X10’s Achilles heel — the software — later.
Update (4/17): In some extremely weird twist of fate, apparently we (erm, I) in fact reviewed the X10 with a screen protector on it the entire time, which explains why the screen felt like plastic. In fact, it’s glass. The review unit we received came in an obviously used box (with no instruction manual, btw), and between that and a casual inspection, we (erm, I) completely missed the screen protector. That doesn’t change the fact that we (erm, I) were rather enamored with the X10’s hardware, and it’s hardly unusual for a phone to actually be used with a screen protector. We’re going to take on the software in an upcoming review.