Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Reviewed

Video
For the most part, taking videos on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 was very easy and the majority of them turned out very well. The only problem was that they were recorded at a fairly low resolution considering the fact that the camera is capable of capturing 8.1 megapixel stills, and yet it only records video in WVGA resolution [854x480]. This is likely the result of the fact that this device does not run Android 2.2 and that limitation of the Android 1.6 OS hampers its ability to capture 720P HD video[which will be fixed in the upcoming update]. This is yet another episode where the lack of an up-to-date OS degrades the device’s abilities. Viewing recorded and pre-loaded videos on the device is magnificent as the screen’s brightness and overall quality is impeccable. In addition to that, the phone has the ability to zoom while taking video which most camera phones currently cannot do. This feature makes viewing things from afar a bit easier, but since it’s a digital zoom there is still a limitation on how much quality zoom you can get.

Below is a video test on the beach, the same place as our N900 review.

Here is a test of the active video zoom

Camera and Photography
As far as the camera goes, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 takes great photos. The only part of the photography process that needs improvement is the actual button itself. When using the hardware button, there isn’t an even amount of pressure that can be applied to take photos. It requires too much pressure on the button to actually take a photo, because of this we ended up getting more camera shake than we would have liked. Although, we did notice that when viewing those photos on the phone itself, the images looked much better and didn’t have the standard yellowish hue that most camera phones have. Upon uploading the images, though, we did notice that yellowish hue, so the camera isn’t necessarily perfect. At 8.1 megapixels, though, they are extremely detailed and life-like. In addition to that, the digital zoom is a little better than some other phones since it has more pixels to play with. Below we have a few samples of photos taken by the camera.






Battery Life
This is probably one of our favorite things about this phone outside of its non-standard UIs and overall attractive look. Upon getting this phone we immediately wanted to test its battery life. We tested the phone in two ways. One was barely using it, only to occasionally check emails or texts. The other was to heavily put a strain on the battery and use the web browser, internet apps, video, camera, and play music. Upon doing the latter, we managed to squeeze out an impeccable 15 hour battery life. There is one disclaimer, though, this is with the Advanced Task Killer Android application installed and running with an 30 minute auto kill. This application in our eyes, if properly used, has improved the battery life of all of the Android devices and is practically a ghost running in the background. We don’t really care much for the light user statistics or light usage numbers as the majority of people are more concerned with how long the phone will last them under intense conditions rather than light usage.