Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 Windows Mobile phone: Hands-on photos

If you need a Windows Mobile phone, Sony Ericsson hopes to tempt you with the Xperia X2, a phone that tries to make business time sexy

Flora Graham

Oct. 27, 2009 4:15 a.m. PT

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The Sony Ericsson's Xperia X2 is a phone for the suits, thanks to its Windows Mobile operating system, but with a little dash of Sony Eric's mastery of media.

The follow-up to the Xperia X1 garnishes WinMo's support for your Outlook email with an 8.1-megapixel camera and Son Eric's fabulous audio quality through a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

We thought that the Xperia X2 looked great, especially compared to some of the other business-oriented phones out there. It's much slimmer and sleeker than the HTC Touch Pro2, for example. But its resistive touchscreen and complicated user interface mean this a phone to wrestle with, rather than cuddle.

We just got our hands on the sexy slider, so click 'Continue' to find out more of our first impressions.

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The Xperia X2 has the latest edition of Windows Mobile on board, version 6.5, so the Start menu is more finger-friendly than the Xperia X1. But many of the menus are still too tiny to tap, and the screen is the resistive type, so you may have to use the included stylus to get around.

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Sony Ericsson introduced the concept of 'panels' with the Xperia X1 -- these are active home screens you can set up and switch to, depending on your mood or the time of day. For example, one panel might show social-networking widgets, such as your Facebook status and Twitter updates, and another might show a list of your emails and appointments.

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We found the panels could be confusing, since some show only one thing -- CNN's front page, for example -- while others are complex user interfaces in themselves, like this one based on SPB Mobile Shell. There's even one that's the twin of the default Android home screens, which you can swipe to reveal more real estate to either side. It's a powerful system, but it's complicated stuff.

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Besides the touchscreen, you can navigate with the small, square optical trackpad on the front, or slide it open to reveal a full Qwerty keyboard. The keyboard has everything, including a Windows key, and it slides out smoothly on a curved angle.

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The back of the phone features an 8.1-megapixel camera with an LED photo light. We didn't have a chance to test the camera on the prototype phone we saw, but Sony Ericsson has made some fabulous camera phones, so we have high hopes this could be the best smart-phone camera out there.