Woohoo! Just got my Black Xperia (pictures inside)...

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NZtechfreak

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#27904 10-Nov-2008 17:18

Well, since the shipment was delayed they decided to throw me a bone and use an expedited shipping option - I have my beautiful Xperia in my hands now! Uploading photos to Ovi at the moment (taken from my N82), and will post a link once they're up...

EDIT: Here are the pictures

Very initial impressions:

Wow. This is a beautiful device - just stunning - better in person than even the pictures would have you believe.

In terms of size its essentially the same size as the N82 (maybe a mm wider, same thickness but lies flat whereas the N82 sits up a little where the lens slider mechanism is). Very nicely balanced device, feels much better in the hand than my Touch Pro, despite only being a little lighter (still a nice weight that makes you think "this is a quality premium device").

Build quality seems excellent (a little play around the slider, but not heaps - I'd say better than the N95's but slightly worse than the E66).

Screen is superb - slightly recessed, which is a little bit of a downer, but made more sensitive than others like my Touch Pro due to this.

Keyboard is actually better than expected. Several reviews said the keyboard was poor, and while it is not as good as my Touch Pro (which is excellent), it seems decent. Good clear space around each key, and a definite click. Will type a few sentences into a word document or similar later and see how it performs in actual use.

Panels - only a very preliminary look so far. Performance seems adequate, nothing special going on there though. Will update once I've installed the SPB Mobile Shell Panel and put on Touch Flow 3D HD as a panel.

Will update with more as it comes to hand...
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zocster

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#177182 10-Nov-2008 17:32

I can officially say I am jealous

Edit until of course when the touch3g arrives at my doorstep

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freitasm

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#177186 10-Nov-2008 17:56

Very nice...

msian

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#177195 10-Nov-2008 18:52

very bery nice buddy. stunning looking phone. so how does it feel like after playing with it? do you like it? Also, mind sharing with us .. where u got it from and how much?

Damager

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#177252 11-Nov-2008 00:39

that looks awesome!! did you manage to sell your diamond?

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NZtechfreak

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#177279 11-Nov-2008 09:21

Touch Pro, not Diamond - still for sale!

Still really liking it, but only just putting my SIM in it this morning (was using my Touch Pro as a modem all last night). So will see how it is today (will put on the SPB panel today and Touch Flo 3D as a panel and make further reports, will also see how it handles my 16GB microSDHC card).

Hmmn, should be public - I'll take a look soon and sort it for you...

EDIT 1: This link for the pictures should work better...

EDIT 2:

More thoughts (having waited until this morning to put in my SIM and microSDHC cards due to my Touch Pro being a modem overnight...):

Camera - of course not as good as the current Nokia's (not even close, but much better than the Touch Pro). That said, its a nice interface with good features, and in good light the pictures are very nice - good colour balance. I particularly like the touch-focus feature - nice for arty macro's. Check the pocketnow review for some sample images.

Installed the SPB Mobile Shell Panel - very nice interface. Not quite as much eye candy as Touch Flo 3D, but nice nevertheless and better usability (finger friendly ++ and good for one-handed use once you've installed the Blackstone keyboards to get a decent phone keypad with T9).

Browsing experience is awesome. Quite a bit superior to the Touch Pro, which in itself was already far superior to Nokia's current offerings. 800 pixels wide is a joy - it renders the whole width of webpages - and despite text being small, its still legible thanks to the fantastic screen resolution. Scrolling for some reason is much smoother than the Touch Pro (both using the Opera browser, I've yet to try Skyfire), perhaps because the whole width is rendered??? I find the Optical pointer good when browsing, and also generally (once I turned the sensitivity down a little), but some reviewers hate it (in other words your mileage may vary).

Internet Sharing "just works" - I'm posting from my PC at the moment tethered to the X1, as do most of the other things, for example setting up push for my gmail account. Coming from the Touch Pro synching was effortless - just plugged it in and it synched across all my contacts/notes/documents/favorites.

Have used GPS a little. Superior performance to the the Touch Pro, so far seems on a par with the Nokia's. Works fine with Garmin XT, which is a godsend (whereas the Touch Pro could only seem to lock with Garmin if Google Maps was running in the background).

Coping just fine with the 16GB MicroSDHC card, music players refreshed automatically in the presence of the card.

Speaking of music, some interesting things to note from today. Sound quality is superior to the Touch Pro, similar to the Nokia's, but still falling a little short I think (in other words very good for a WinMo handset, but only adequate in absolute terms). Sound output is a little quieter than the Touch Pro, but this is a simple registry fix if you wanted to tweak it upwards (another owner says his is now ear-bleedingly loud, if thats what you're after). Sony's Media Experience panel looks nice, and is also finger-friendly, but otherwise gets a big fail from me. It can't keep playing the music in the background with other tasks running in the foreground (because its a panel replacing the Today Screen, rather than an application in its own right). It also doesn't respond to AVRCP commands - tried it with a Sony stereo bluetooth headset and got nada. So basically I'll be using other means to access media most times, most likely Coreplayer, or the HTC Album Manager from within Touch Flo 3D HD, which I'll hopefully get around to installing tonight. The other thing I tried this morning was the Radio Panel - nice! As with the Media panel it won't continue while you do other stuff, but it does its thing very well, nice and finger-friendly with great reception (with a wired headset, of course). One last thing on Music/Audio - it has a standard 3.5mm jack if any of you weren't aware of this already (sensibly positioned at the top of the device).

More on the keyboard with further use:
Its fine. Inferior to the Touch Pro, but then that keyboard currently has no equal besides the fixed E90. Miss the dedicated number buttons for sure, and the top row is very slightly too close to the upper part of the slider, but all in all a decent keyboard - particularly once you climb the short learning curve.

EDIT 3:
Oh, forgot to mention the screens sunlight legibility - usable, but nothing more. Think N82 before the brightness fix basically. I never had a problem with my N82's screen brightness, but I know others did, and they would find this similarly difficult here though (would need to research and see whether a registry patch can fix it - I suspect this is possible).

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NZtechfreak

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#177508 12-Nov-2008 10:05

Well, just installed some more tweaks etc this morning.

First of all increased the pop-menu font size (now nice and touchable), added the HTC Volume Manager (better than WinMo standard, touch-friendly), added the HTC Touch HD onscreen keyboards (better than WinMo standard, touch-friendly, nice to have phone keypad with T9). Then changed the Google panel so that it points to Opera and not the terrible Pocket IE. A couple more tweaks and the UI will be perfect (this is WinMo - terrible out of the box, but workable if you're prepared to coax it a little).

Then installed Touch Flo 3D HD as a panel - working perfectly. Thing that really gets me is that its running smoother than it was on my HTC Touch Pro! The HD version has a few subtle improvements over the VGA one on my Touch Pro though (5 day forecast row in the Weather tab - stunning looking by the way - call and text buttons beneath Contacts in that tab etc). Will be interesting to see whether I end up using this or SPB Mobile Shell Panel - I suspect it'll be Touch Flo because it looks so nice (not just for the eye candy of the UI, but also how good it looks with a black device), and the music player is more accessible and touch friendly in TF3D.

Twitter: @nztechfreak
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brownbox

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#178109 15-Nov-2008 10:06

does it have an accellerometer? Also, any onscreen keyboard for one handed use? Also whats the camera like? I cant seem to find any
pictures on the web.

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NZtechfreak

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#178130 15-Nov-2008 12:36

It has no accelerometer sadly, you assign a button to screen rotation (it changes automatically when the keyboard opens too of course).

Has the terrible WinMo onscreen keyboard standard, but you can install others - for example in my last post I mentioned that I have installed the HTC Touch HD keyboards in - I use the phone keypad with T9 for texting/one handed use.

Hopefully I'll have time to post up some images later, but the Pocketnow review has some samples taken from the camera. Its no N82, thats for sure, but it takes quite nice images in good lighting conditions.

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brownbox

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#178137 15-Nov-2008 14:12

thansk for that. Im just making my way slowly through the pocketnow review :)
Can it be used with fingers aswell, or must it be with the stylus? From previous experience, recessed touchscreens can get a bit tricky to use with fingers, expecially with buttons around the edges of the screen

Say, for example, you wanted to check a text message, and send one back, with one hand, while walking along. Could this be done with this phone?

NZtechfreak

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#178148 15-Nov-2008 17:08

I haven't found the recessed screen much of a problem - its much more sensitive than the Touch Pro for example so registering touches near the devices edges is OK.

Regarding one-handed texting - sure I can do this using the Touch HD keyboards which I've installed.

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brownbox

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#178149 15-Nov-2008 17:31

cool, thanks. Seems like Ill be keeping an eye out for a cheap deal on this when i head overseas on holiday