The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is a 2010 high endsmartphone in the Xperia series designed by Sony Ericsson. It was the first Sony Ericsson smartphone to run the Android operating system. The phone was shipped with Android 1.6, but an upgrade to 2.1 was made available starting 31 October 2010, with a gradual international rollout. Originally, Sony Ericsson stated that the X10 would not receive an upgrade to Android 2.2 or beyond, but the phone was later upgraded to 2.3.3 with the updates starting on 29 July 2011. The phone features an 8.1 MP camera and a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. Its screen has a widescreen resolution, 480 x 854 pixels, and features a virtual keyboard rather than a physical one. It makes use of HSPA for its mobile connection, giving it top download speeds of 7.2 Mbit/s. The UX platform features two applications which allow the user to consolidate all of their communications and media, Timescape and Mediascape, respectively.
Reception
The Xperia X10 was first revealed on 3 November 2009. It was first released in Japan on 1 April 2010, and has since become the quickest-selling smartphone for NTT DoCoMo. The overall response has been positive for the hardware, camera and screen. There were negative comments about the lack of support for Android 2.1 which were quelled when it was released later that year.
Hardware
The display is a wide TFT Capacitive touchscreen, with a 16:9 aspect ratio and FWVGA resolution of 480 x 854 pixels, along with a multi-touch enabled screen, the first from Sony. The 8.1-megapixel camera features 16x digital zoom, image stabilization, auto-focus, geo-tagging, smile detection, and face detection. It can also record video, with an LED for use in poor light conditions. It has a 3-axis accelerometer and built in GPS. Its CPU is 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 with its GPU is Adreno 200. The hardware is limited in its multi-touch functionality. It can only track multiple touches where their X and Y coordinates are different. The firmware to enable this functionality was first released in Japan.
Networks
The Xperia X10 uses the 850/900/1800/1900 frequency bands for GSM. Both versions use 850/900/1800/1900 frequency bands for GSM while they differ regarding the UMTS frequency bands; the X10a uses 800/850/1900/2100 bands, and the X10i uses 900/1700/2100. The X10a is used by AT&T Mobility in the US, Telstra in Australia, and Rogers Wireless in Canada. It is also used in South America. The X10i is used by T-Mobile in the USA; Wind Mobile and Mobilicity in Canada; Optus and VHA in Australia; Singtel, Starhub and M1 in Singapore; and through the rest of Asia, Europe, and Oceania. In Japan, it is called the SO-01B and sold by NTT Docomo, using the X10a configuration.
The X10 has built in Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth 2.1, with the option to tether other devices. With the Android 2.3 update, the phone can also create a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Software
Sony Ericsson has its own Android overlay called UX, short for User eXperience. It consists of design elements, themes and custom applications. The main applications are Sony Ericsson Timescape and Sony Ericsson Mediascape. Timescape is a program that brings together Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email into a column on the home screen. Mediascape is a player and library application for media files. It can also connect to Facebook and Picasa accounts and to the phone's contacts list. This makes it possible to attach photos users have taken with the camera to their contacts or send them directly to their Facebook account.
Updates
The Xperia X10 was released with Android 1.6, with an upgrade to Android 2.1 released on 31 October 2010. On 20 January 21, an update was released which enabled multi-touch. On 1 February 2011, Sony Ericsson announced a futur update for Xperia X10 that would bring optimizations and bug fixes along with language additions and the pinch-to-zoom feature. On 29 July 2011, the Android 2.3.3 update was released.
Rooting
As of 1 April 2011, the bootloader has been bypassed via kexec which enables the loading of custom kernels. Custom ROMs have been developed, however they still use the 2.1 kernel so some features such as native Wi-Fi tethering are missing. As of 20 January 2011 there are two custom roms being developed based on 2.2. All X10 devices running the Gingerbread firmware are vulnerable to the zergRush rooting method.
Issues
The initial 3UK release of firmware contained bugs. Some users have reported Wi-Fi connection disruptions in early software versions. Several users from sonyericsson, and 4pda forums reported a self-rebooting bug on their X10i's. It is believed the bug appears because of defects on the phone's motherboard. Since the Android 2.3 update the phone has suffered a stuttering in play or streaming of music regardless of file association. The only solution currently is to root the phone and apply a patch located on the XDA developers forum. Sony refuses to acknowledge the problem and have as of late offered no solution to this bug.
