Introduction
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is the latest addition to the Sony Ericsson Xperia series and we can’t wait to review this. At first glance, we almost mistook it with the X10 Mini Pro. Both handsets look awfully similar.
The X8 looks nifty and light. It looks good with the white casing and 3” capacitive touch screen from the front. The X8 package comes with the phone itself, a microUSB cable, a wall charger, a 2Gb microSD card, a wired handsfree, and four additional back covers.
Design
The buttons on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 are in the familiar places where you would expect to find them in an Android phone. Below the screen you can find the Menu, Home and Back keys. To the right are the camera and volume keys, and up top you can find the power/lock key, the microUSB port, and a 3.5mm connector port. While the body might feel cheap because of the plastic on the back, the X8 is still one of the best looking smartphones out on the market today.
The screen of the X8 is a 3” capacitive TFT LCD screen with resolution of 320×480 pixels. The viewing angles are good. Outdoor visibility is fairly poor, especially if you have the brightness bumped to the max, but you’ll still have to shield the display in extreme situations.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is by no means an unattractive phone. It is one of the better looking Android phones out there. In terms of design, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is a very elegant piece of device, to say the least.
Features
There are several applications already installed in the Xperia X8 when you get it. These applications include YouTube, Google Maps, Facebook, Google Talk and Gmail. The Xperia X8 also features an expandable memory slot up to 16 GB. It also features an internal 600 MHz processor so it should not have any issues handling anything that you have to dish out to it.
The internet browser is workable and renders pages well, but with no pinch-to-zoom, delving into web pages is not ideal. We also found the Wi-Fi a bit wobbly and inconsistent which ended up in a five minute ordeal of trying to establish a wireless connection.
The interface for the 3.2 megapixel camera on the back of the phone is simple and easy to understand. Flash or auto focus would have been nice features if included. The quality of the pictures and videos are well below average. The colours appear dull, while close-ups turn out quite blurry.
The music player of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is user friendly and easy to manage. You can easily choose the track you want to play but unfortunately, more advanced options such as equalizers are missing. The speaker is pretty loud and even manages to produce some deeper sounding tones. The supplied earphones are bearable. You’ll probably want to replace them with better ones if you are big on listening to music on the move.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8’s video playback capabilities are quite good but the usual lack of Divx and XviD support is frustrating. That means you would have to convert them into MPEG-4 format manually. MPEG-4 videos can be played at up to 800×480 pixels resolution.
The battery is relatively powerful – delivering up to 5 hours 40 minutes of 3G talk time. The 1200mAh battery is rated at 5 hours of talk time and 18 days on standby. Even though the X8′s processor is not quite as fast as some of the higher end Android phones, its 600 MHz processor and 128 MB of RAM will still handle most tasks with ease.
Pros and Cons
In terms of advantages and disadvantages, we at LatestPhones.com conclude that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 delivers a multi-functional, yet is a compact device with standard design and usability.The main disadvantage would be the web browsing function. But if internet capabilities are not high on your list, this could be the phone for you.
Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is a very stylish offering that finds a pretty good balance between being compact and functional at the same time. It is pretty decent for almost all kinds of tasks, but doesn’t excel in anything. It is the best average phone there is which is pretty considerable for a budget handset.The main selling point of the X8 would undoubtedly be its cost. It is not a high end Android phone but it tries to tout the best Android has to offer.