Spain--Sony Ericsson, which historically has created phones around the Symbian operating system, jumped quietly onto the Windows Mobile bandwagon with the announcement here today of its Xperian X1 smartphone.
The X1--the first product in the company's new Xperian brand for high-end smartphones--was the big news at Sony Ericsson's press event on the eve of the giant Mobile World Congress wireless telecom trade show here. MWC (which in previous years was known as 3GSM) opens Monday and continues through Thursday.
Sony Ericsson also announced a slew of other phones, including new Walkman and Cyber-shot handsets, plus a couple of high-speed HSPA XpressCards.
The X1 won't appear until the second half of this year, but most of the others should begin shipping worldwide by mid year. Most of the phones support either HSDPA or its slightly slower (but still considered broadband) sibling, UMTS--although some only support the latter in Europe (and are therefore unlikely to ship in the U.S.).
Windows Mobile Downplayed
Sony Ericsson officials downplayed the significance of its decision to launch a Windows Mobile-based handset, focusing more on the new Xperia brand. The X1's Windows Mobile 6 underpinnings were referenced only via some visual cues in a video about Xperia and the X1, and were mentioned only in passing later on.
Xperia X1
In fact, the handset has a custom user interface--consisting of 9 square icons that Sony Ericsson calls panels--which sits on top of the usual Windows Mobile 6 interface. The company also said the Xperia brand was not tied to Windows Mobile, so that future Xperia models could support other mobile phone platforms.
However Rikko Sakaguchi, head of Portfolios and Propositions for Sony Ericsson, said using Windows Mobile would allow the company to broaden its customer base, and also said it was the best platform in terms of PC integration.
The handset itself has a resistive 3-inch VGA touchscreen atop an optical navigation pad; the display slides sideways in a gently curved arc (and changes screen orientation to landscape mode) to reveal a roomy QWERTY keyboard. It supports assisted GPS and Wi-Fi as well as HSDPA, and has a built-in 3.2-megapixel camera.