Xperia 10 review

When people find out how much I love gadgets, they usually say, "you're so lucky to be in the business then!" Not really. I have to pay for all the stuff I buy, and since I love having things before others have them, sometimes I not only pay full price, but a premium to have that luxury. Every once in a while however, the brands that I deal with will kindly send me something that's newly launched, or if I'm really lucky, way before it hits the market. That's exactly what happened with my latest toy, the Sony Ericsson Xperia 10.

I carry two phones around with me- an orange coloured Blackberry Javelin (custom made by Colorware) and an iPhone 3Gs. I figured I would never be happy whichever way my internal Blackberry vs iPhone war panned out, so I decided to give in and carry both. Despite there being at least a dozen phones in recent history being touted as the "iphone killer," there really was no device I'd tried that made me want to put away my iPhone... until now.

I've been playing with the Xperia 10 for almost a week now, and I REALLY think Sony Ericsson has a winner here, given to a large extent, it's adoption of the Android platform. The previous Xperia's have run on the aging Windows Mobile system, and the Android is indeed a welcome change. SE have worked their magic on the phone, customizing the UI to be more smooth and fluid than a regular Android device, which in itself has all the bells and whistles of a great smart phone, including the Android Market for apps. I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of my frequently used apps from the iPhone store on the Android Market, and I immediately was able to download a Facebook app, one from Dictionary.com, an MSN messenger app, Opera mobile, and not to mention a whole host of usefulapps by Google themselves. The lock screen can get a little tiring to operate, but apart from that, my pre-production unit had virtually no bugs. My favourite part of the phone has most definitely got to be the 8 megapixel camera that comes built into the device! I will take test shots with my phone and put them up soon. Since the device is MUCH smaller than the iPhone, it also fascilitates better phone and camera handling. Sony's influence on the camera side of the software is very evident with its ability to handle different modes including the popular "smile capture."

For those looking for a smartphone that's smaller than an iPhone and slicker than a blackberry, this is your device! Check it out in April at a Jumbo store closest to you.