Introduction
The X8 bridges the gap between two extremes. And it manages to find itself a niche in the process - a niche where it can breathe freely. It’s a place with healthy competition but no big egos around. The X8 is selling for as low as 175 euro and that makes it one of the least expensive Android smartphones on the market.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 official photos
For a reasonable price, the phone offers the feature pack most of its rivals would give you. It has diverse connectivity options, a good music player, neat user interface, a built-in camera and access to social networks and the Android Market.
Average size and realistic price, the X8 fits snugly in the Android midrange and sets itself apart from its XPERIA siblings. That’s more than evident without digging too deep into the spec sheet.
Key features
Main disadvantages
Imaging is certainly middling: no autofocus and measly 3 megapixels. The screen on the other hand has grown to a healthy 3 inches and standard HVGA resolution.
What is still missing though is a more recent Android OS version. Like the rest of the Android-based XPERIAs, the X8 is running Android v1.6 (Donut). An update to Android 2.1 Eclair is due but there is still no word of Froyo ever coming the XPERIA way.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 live shots
This is obviously a concern, but the Sony Ericsson X8 is still worth a look as a possible purchase. After all, it offers a well balanced feature set and it’s fairly priced. But that’s something to talk about at the end of our review.
Not before we’ve looked inside the box and had design and handling duly covered. That’s what we’re up to after the break.
Gallery with one-finger zoom
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 gallery automatically locates the images, no matter where they are stored. There is none of the cool new look of Android 2.1 Eclair – you just get a plain grid with your images sorted by date.
The gallery supports finger scrolling or panning so you can skip images without having to return to the default view. Just sweep to the left or right when looking at a photo fullscreen, and the previous/next image will appear.
The image gallery is decent but hardly the best we’ve seen
Pinch-zooming isn’t available but Sony Ericsson have come up with their own version of one-finger zoom that actually works great. You just hold your finger down and than sweep upwards for zooming in or downwards for zooming out. There’s also the double-tap zoom if that’s how you roll.
The one-finger zooming is quick and responsive
Unfortunately, there is no Bluetooth file transfer in the gallery or any other fancy functionality that more demanding users might expect. The X8 is a simple tool for previewing your images and it won’t do much more than that.
Bluetooth file transfers from the gallery are not an option
A basic video player on board
The video player is simple in looks and functionality. You get a list of all videos available on the phone and play/pause, skip controls, as well as a draggable progress bar.
The video player is as simple as it gets
MP4 files are as good as it gets. The XPERIA midi cannot play DivX/XviD videos but you could look for a more versatile video player over at the Android Market.
The music player does the job
The music player on the XPERIA X8 didn’t get much in terms of new features. It manages your audio files decently but there is very little extra functionality beyond that.
The music player is decent looking and snappy
The best bit is the Infinite key that allows you to quickly look up a song or album on YouTube or Sony Ericsson’s own Play Now arena.
Pressing the Infinite button let’s you look up tracks on YouTube and Play Now arena
There isn’t even gradual typing for searching a specific song with the virtual QWERTY, so you will have to use the kinetic scrolling or opt for artist sorting. At least there are three smart playlists that automatically gather your Newly added, Most played and Never played tracks.
There are still a lot of shortcomings of the music player that need addressing, though. For example there are still no equalizer presets, nor any alternative skins.
Decently clean and pleasingly loud audio output
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 did decently in our traditional audio quality test. The best part of its performance is probably the high volume, but the spot-on frequency response and the low distortion levels are not to be neglected either.
The stereo crosstalk, dynamic range and noise level readings are hardly impressive, but they aren't too bad either.
Interestingly enough, when headphones come into play the stereo crosstalk doesn't increase as much as with some other handsets and is in fact better than we are used to seeing. The intermodulation distortion increases a bit but is still hardly something to worry about, while the rest of the readings remain decent, if unspectacular.
An uninspiring 3 megapixel fixed-focus snapper
On the hardware side of things, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 has a 3 megapixel camera module for a maximum image resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. Sadly, there is neither autofocus nor flash.
The camera interface is as simple as it gets with three buttons in total. There is a camera/camcorder switch, a gallery button and scene mode. The four available scene presets include twilight, sports, beach/snow and, of course auto.
The camera interface
You can enable geotagging, which is the most advanced feature available. You’ll have to go all the way to Settings / Sony Ericsson / Camera to find that option though, it’s not available in the camera app itself.
This is certainly one of the most basic camera interfaces on the market but we guess Sony Ericsson thought users wouldn’t need much more and would prefer simplicity to functionality. In the end, it all comes down to the image quality, so let’s see.
The image quality turned out to be disappointing. The aggressive noise reduction smudges fine detail and the white balance could’ve been better too.
Here are some real-world samples from the XPERIA X8 camera:
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 camera samples
Synthetic resolution
We also snapped our resolution chart with the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8. You can check out what that test is all about You can check out what that test is all about here.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 resolution chart photo * 100% crops
VGA video recording
Video recording on the X8 goes as high as VGA resolution which, needless to say, is far from impressive. At least the framerate is a good 30 fps and consistent enough.
The interface of the camcorder is similar to the one on the still camera, except that there are even fewer settings. You can set the video quality, turn the video light on and off and that's that.
The camcorder mode
Videos are rendered in 3gp format suggesting lower bitrate, which in turn leads to some compression artifacts. Video also suffers from the lack of contrast so videos aren't too nice to watch on a computer screen.
Here is VGA@30fps video sample shot at VGA@30fps.
Connectivity is well covered
Despite its size, you get all the connectivity options on the XPERIA X8. For starters, you get quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE for worldwide roaming and two versions with either dual-band (900/2100 MHz) or tri-band (850/1900/2100 MHz) 3G with HSPA.
As for local connectivity, the X8 offers USB v2.0, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP support (no file transfer though) and Wi-Fi. The USB interface is standard microUSB and it can charge the phone over a USB connection to a computer.
The microSD card is accessible in mass storage mode or you can plug it into a card reader, which is the fastest way to do bulk data transfers.
A nice but Flash-less web browser
The Android browser on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 is a very good one – the major disadvantage is the lack of Flash support. This could change eventually, but the X8 will have to be updated to Android 2.2 Froyo.
The user interface is rather minimalist – all you get on the screen are the zoom controls. The address bar is hidden by default to save some space as the low resolution doesn’t allow much content to fit on the screen anyway.
The X8 web browser
Unfortunately, the Android browser on the X8 supports only a single zoom method – the dedicated onscreen buttons. There is no double tap or one-finger zooming like in the Gallery.
On the positive side, the browser supports text reflow – as soon as you zoom, columns of text adjust to fit the screen width. And there’s also the nice magnifying glass browsing mode, which let’s you browse the page quickly until you reach the part that you want to focus and then zoom in on to read it.
The magnifying glass mode can help you quickly search larges sites for specific bits of info
The minimalist UI is still quite powerful – hit the menu key and four keys pop up. You can open/switch tabs, refresh the page, go forward, open bookmarks.
The available options • Multiple tabs can be opened
Flash support is the other letdown of the X8 browser. There is of course a YouTube application onboard but Flash content doesn't start nor end with YouTube.
GPS navigation
No surprise, the X8 comes with Google Maps out of the box. Multi-touch doesn't work so you’re stuck with the traditional zoom keys or double tapping.
Naturally Google Maps is here too
A tap-and-hold on the screen activates a popup menu which ,among other things, can launch Street view. As usual, you can enjoy the 3D view of the area, which is controlled by sweep gestures with impressive fluidity. They can also make use of the built-in compass for an even better experience – just hold the phone in your hand and turn around and Street view will follow you.
Street view also works with the built-in compass
If you’re in one of the supported countries you could try Google Maps Navigation – it should work on Android 1.6 Donut, even if some of the features from the Eclair version aren’t available (e.g. voice commands). Google Maps Navigation is the voice-prompt enabled version of Google Maps.
The other preinstalled map application is Wisepilot, which is found on other platforms. The thing about Wisepilot is that it requires a license for voice guided navigation and it downloads data over the Internet. That makes it unsuitable (or at least really expensive) for using abroad.
WisePilot comes preinstalled and does voice-guided navigation
There are already several ways around that of course. The Android Market offers a dozen of applications (both free and paid) so it’s up to you to pick one that best suits you. The problem is that the screen and the phone itself seem too small to use for navigation but we guess everyone should judge that for themselves.
Final words
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 has just made it to the market but parts of it still seem stuck in last year. At the same time though it is more than decently equipped for its 170 euro price tag. It has its downsides and those are easy to notice but there are a bunch of plusses too, especially if you are new to Android.
The Timescape app is one of the good things about the XPERIA X8. Another one is the Four corner UI which is user-friendly and makes good use of the screen estate. There is a great set of connectivity options too and, last but not least, the X8 screen is standard-issue 320 x 480 pixels. If you’ve been paying attention you’d know we’re not too fond of QVGA droids. The XPERIA X10 minis have a legitimate excuse.
And while we’re at it: the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini and X10 mini pro have a 2.55” QVGA display each. That’s small and low-res but we’re talking some of the smallest smartphones ever. The important point is whether and how the X8 benefits from the added size and pixel density.
The X8 gives the user interface a lot more room to work with and handling is more user-friendly. Standard resolution lets the phone make better use of the Android market. On the bigger screen web browsing is now a different story.
On the other hand, there’s still no multi-touch and banding is perhaps more annoying than on the minis. In the end though, the X8 makes more sense for routine everyday tasks. The X10 minis are in a different league. They’re so small they’re special. And obviously still more expensive – both cost over 200 euro each.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini • Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro
Another option is the LG GT540 Optimus (priced at less than 150 euro) or maybe its recently announced successor, the upcoming Optimus One P500. The Optimus comes with a resistive touchscreen and the same limited storage for apps but its camera has autofocus and its Android 2.1 update has already been released. But while the Optimus One seems like a more viable alternative, it’s expected to cost around 235 euro.
LG GT540 Optimus • LG Optimus One P500
Last but not least, there’s the HTC Wildfire. With a multi-touch-enabled 3.2” screen, a 5MP autofocus snapper, HTC Sense and premium finish, it is all but ready to blow the X8 apart. However, the QVGA touchscreen ruins it all – it’s just too low to let the Wildfire deliver a proper Android user experience. The HTC Wildfire costs around 30 euro more than the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 but we won’t fuss it.
HTC Wildfire
If we have to name one phone that we’ll choose over the X8 any day, no questions asked, it would be the HTC Aria (or its just announced twin, the HTC Gratia). But – and it’s a big one – the price tag is a big part of the equation. The X8 is hard to beat really if budget is your first concern.
Let’s face it: the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 misses the wow factor. It has something else instead – a fair price and a well balanced set of features. Can’t be so bad now, can it? Unfortunately, it can. And while the competition isn’t too hard at least for a while, Sony Ericsson are damaging their own prospects by taking too long with the Android upgrades.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Sony Ericsson X8 review: XPERIA in the middle
8:23 AM
Raj
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X8 is likely to outsell the rest of the XPERIA droids. It’s neither the best phone in the line-up, nor it’s a phone to excite and inspire but it’s the common denominator. It is right in the middle. It’s an XPERIA for everyone – both size-wise and price-wise.
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