Review: Sony Ericsson X8

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.

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.

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

• Quad-band GSM/EDGE, HSDPA 900/2100 / HSDPA 850/1900/2100
• 3.0" capacitive TFT touchscreen of HVGA resolution, 16M colors
• Scratch-resistant screen coating
• Android OS v1.6 Donut with custom Sony Ericsson UI, featuring Timescape
• Qualcomm MSM7227 600 MHz processor
• 128 MB onboard storage, microSD card slot (up to 16GB), 2GB card included
• 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera with geotagging, VGA video @ 30fps
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
• Built-in GPS receiver, digital compass
• microUSB port, charging enabled
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Excellent audio
• FM radio with RDS
• Accelerometer for UI auto-rotate
• Social networking integration

Main disadvantages

• Limited storage for installing third-party apps
• Outdated Android OS version
• No multi-touch support
• Camera lacks autofocus
• No DivX video support out of the box
• microSD slot under the battery cover
• No secondary video-call camera

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.

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.

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Wi-Fi Direct to Threaten Bluetooth

You may soon be able to transfer content between Wi-Fi-enabled devices in your home or office without having to set up a Wi-Fi router. On Oct. 25, industry association Wi-Fi Alliance began certifying consumer electronic gadgets that can connect directly to other Wi-Fi devices. The technology is, in effect, an alternative to Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

Devices marked with the new Wi-Fi Direct label can connect to older Wi-Fi devices. Mobile phones, cameras, printers, PCs and gaming devices can now connect to each other directly to transfer content and share applications. Devices can make a one-to-one connection, or a group of several devices can connect simultaneously. How this might work: Your Wi-Fi Direct device will signal to other devices in the area that it can make a connection. You can view available devices and ask them to connect, or you might receive an invitation to connect to another Wi-Fi Direct device.

Chipmakers including Intel, Broadcom and Atheros have already announced Wi-Fi Direct products. If Wi-Fi Direct takes off, Bluetooth’s future may be murky.

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Android Ties Apple for Mobile Ads in U.S. Market

The amount of U.S. advertising dollars coming from smartphones running Android matched the revenue generated by Apple's iOS for the first time in October. Both platforms had 37 percent of the ad-impression market, according to Millennial Media. Among smartphone vendors, however, Apple continued to lead the field in the U.S. mobile -ad race with a 25 percent share .

Google's Android holds a powerful advantage over Apple since the OS runs on devices from multiple handset makers. On the other hand, the iPhone maker's impressions count received an extra boost last month as Millennial began including ad impressions from non-phone Wi-Fi devices such as Apple's iPod touch and iPad.

Surprisingly, Apple's iPod touch ranked third with a 7.5 percent market share, and the iPad ranked ninth with a 1.5 percent share. "What this says is that app developers should be looking at more than just the mobile phone," said Al Hilwa, director of applications development software at IDC. "They need to focus on the full portfolio of monetization strategies that any mobile platform offers them."

A Boon for Developers

Mobile applications are becoming important platforms for ads that generate revenue for software developers. According to Millennial CFO Michael Avon, mobile apps now represent about 50 percent of the overall monthly impressions and revenue being generated on the mobile-advertising network .

"This just goes to show that the price of the app isn't everything," Hilwa said. "The ad model in the long run is going to dwarf the amount of money being made by developers from the app itself."

Avon observed that the number of apps on the Millennial network has grown more than 600 percent since the mobile-advertising network launched a self-service developer portal in the first quarter.

"The number of applications on our network doubled in the third quarter of this year and the growth rate has accelerated into the fourth quarter," Avon wrote. "We anticipate that the continued proliferation of applications on 'connected devices' is a trend to watch in 2011 and beyond."

Recent trends also indicate that advertisers see value in delivering ads via a mobile app and are willing to pay a premium, Avon noted. "We believe this is a reflection of higher engagement rates in applications, coupled with a higher percentage of rich media and interactive ads in applications," he explained.

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Review: Nokia C7

The Nokia C7 has no intention of breaking the chain of command. It is just a slimmer, simpler and more affordable N8 and comes with more conservative styling. The well-balanced Cseries have received an accomplished leader. The specs are impressive but do well to keep a respectful distance from the Nseries’ finest.

The Nokia C7 still gets really close to the N8 in some ways. It’s got the same blazing fast penta-band 3G, a 3.5” nHD AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, a 680MHz CPU and 256MB RAM, which are some good figures for the efficient Symbian OS.

Understandably, some things have been left out. Getting rid of that bulging camera module has brought down the thickness. But still imaging on the Nokia C7 is down to “just” 8MP and fixed focus. However, 720p video recording is still on – as is Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. The internal memory has been cut in half but 8GB is still plenty, considering there’s a microSD slot if you need to expand.

As always, here are the pros and cons in summarized form and also a quick C7 vs. N8 head-to-head.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Penta-band 3G with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA support
• 10.5mm slim body
• 3.5" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
• 8 megapixel fixed-focus camera with dual-LED flash and 720p video @ 25fps recording; geotagging, face detection
• Symbian^3 OS
• 680 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 256 MB RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• TV-out functionality (SD)
• GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
• Digital compass
• 8GB on-board storage, microSD expandable
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• DivX and XviD video support
• Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
• microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
• Flash and Java support for the web browser
• Stereo Bluetooth 3.0
• Excellent audio quality
• Smart dialing and voice commands

Main disadvantages

• Symbian^3 is still below Android and iOS usability standards (especially camera UI and web browser)
• Camera lacks auto focus, oversharpens images by default
• Relatively limited 3rd party software availability
• No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)
• Battery life is not on par with the best in business

The major advantages of the N8 are the camera and HDMI. An 8MP fixed-focus camera isn’t that bad after all and the HD video recording is still there. There’s metal on the Nokia C7 case and regular TV-Out – SD resolution and stereo sound. Plus it’s slimmer – something people will appreciate. And more importantly it’s cheaper, which was exactly the point.

The 3.5-inch screen is surely among the best touch displays we’ve seen from Nokia (we have yet to check out a Nokia Clear Black display). The HD videos produced by the camera are a treat to watch – on the handset itself and on a computer screen. You can also put the mobile display to good use with some DivX/XviD videos as those are seamlessly supported. The excellent audio output quality and the great connectivity package also set the C7 apart - you rarely see penta-band 3G, WirelessN, Bluetooth 3.0, an FM transmitter, TV-out and USB-on-the-go functionality all in one device.

Feature-wise, the C6-01 is almost identical to the Nokia C7. Both run the Symbian^3, sport 8MP fixed-focus snappers, offer diverse connectivity options and come with AMOLED capacitive touchscreens on board. However, while the C7 has a 3.5-incher, the display of the C6-01 only measures 3.2 inches.

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4G

T-Mobile on Tuesday added a touch of confusion to the concept of 4G wireless network technology by labelling its HSPA+ network as a fourth-generation (4G) technology and calling it the largest such network in the country.

"As [T-Mobile USA Chief Technology Officer] Neville Ray stated recently, 4G is about performance, and today T-Mobile's HSPA+ network is delivering 4G speeds that match and often beat WiMAX and are readily comparable to what early LTE will deliver," Patty Raz, from T-Mobile's public relations agency Waggener Edstrom, told TechNewsWorld.

"T-Mobile is marketing its HSPA+ network as 4G to keep up with the marketing messages from Sprint (NYSE: S) and Verizon Wireless," Alex Spektor, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, told TechNewsWorld.

"It's all about semantics at this point," Godfrey Chua, a research manager at IDC remarked. "You can say LTE is 3.7G and so is HSPA+, and WiMax is 3.9G."

What T-Mobile Said

T-Mobile announced on Tuesday that its HSPA+-enabled network is now available in 75 metropolitan markets throughout the United States.

On Wednesday, the carrier will offer the T-Mobile myTouch 4G Android smartphone, and the Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Inspiron Mini 10 4G, which it describes as the "first 4G netbook," to the public.

T-Mobile's HSPA+ network is capable of theoretical speeds of up to 21 Mbps (megabits per second), and it has seen average download speeds of between 5-12 Mbps on the myTouch 4G smartphone, company representative Raz stated.

Back in March, T-Mobile pledged to roll out its HSPA+ network to more than 100 metropolitan areas serving 185 million people by the end of 2010.

The carrier remains on track to fulfill those plans. "With an aggressive build-out plan, T-Mobile expects to deliver 4G with the necessary fiber backhaul in place in 100 major metropolitan markets, reaching 200 million people in the U.S. by the end of the year," Raz said.

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Facebook Casts Wide Net Across Social Chatter

Facebook has revealed its new messaging system, which is designed to seamlessly tie together several different communications media into a single stream of interaction. "This is not an email killer, it's a messaging system that includes email," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "We don't expect people to wake up tomorrow and shut off their Yahoo or Gmail accounts."

It spans across a user's messaging systems, offering retention of a user's conversation history and a social inbox.

"We don't think that a modern messaging system is going to be email," Zuckerberg told his audience at the press conference in San Francisco.

"The weight and friction you have when thinking of the address you want to send an email to, write 'Hi, Mom' at the top, conclude it with all this extra stuff you have to add to an email really adds a lot of friction to the process of sending an email."

Facebook's new messaging system will integrate messages from any of several media -- SMS, email, Facebook messages or IM -- and will be simpler to use than email, Zuckerberg said.

The New Facebook Messaging System

Facebook's new messaging system will offer seamless integration of all the ways users interact with technology, Zuckerberg explained. "Your phone, Facebook, other websites, email, IM should all be seamlessly integrated," he said.

Facebook will give users email addresses on its domain, meaning they end in "@facebook.com," but using these will be optional. "We don't think email is the primary way people will use this system," Zuckerberg remarked. "This product will seamlessly integrate across all communications products very easily."

All communications between users will have one single thread regardless of the medium -- email, SMS, IMs or Facebook messages. Users can delete the history of a conversation if they want to.

"In real life, if you talk to someone you have a stream of conversation through IM or SMS, you don't have multiple threads. You have one thread with the person and that makes it simple to communicate with them," Zuckerberg said.

The social inbox gives priority to users' friends and "people they really care about," Zuckerberg said. Users enter their friends' lists and those friends enter their own friends' lists, so when a user gets a message from one of the people on those lists, it goes straight to the social inbox.

Whitelisting, which is used by most email systems, is not a practical solution because "nobody wants to make lists," Zuckerberg said.

A second inbox which users can check once a day will contain messages from people not close to them or from other sources. Users may scan this once a day or so, Zuckerberg said.

Facebook's new messaging system will also have a junk mailbox.

Users can move correspondents between the boxes, said Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at Facebook, said.

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iPad 2: Prognosticators Ponder Plethora of Possibilities

Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) expected to release a new version of the iPad sometime next year, sparking endless speculation about when exactly it will arrive and what features it will tout.

Although the original iPad was launched last April, some predictions posit the next iteration will arrive in January, though others give themselves some leeway by forecasting it'll be released sometime in the first quarter of 2011.

As far as features go, the idea that iPad 2 will have two cameras is one popular prediction. Another is that it will be a dual-network device able to work on both GSM and CDMA.

Some say the next iPad will be thinner. Others say it will have a unibody construction like the MacBook. And a few believe it will be made out of carbon fiber for greater durability and to reduce its weight.

Finally, there are rumors that Apple will cut back on the output of its existing iPad model to leave production lines free for the next version.

The iPad Buzz

Production of the new iPad could begin as early as January, and the device may be launched by March, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky. However, Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair expects the new device to hit the shelves in April.

Ibiden, Tripod technology and TTM Technologies have been signed up by Apple to supply printed circuit boards for the new iPad, according to Digitimes, which quoted anonymous sources. They will begin shipping HDI boards for that device in small quantities in December, the article claims.

Apple will sign up another four suppliers in February 2011 when shipments of the new iPads ramp up, according to the report.

The new iPad will be thinner than the current one and will have a unibody construction similar to that of Apple's MacBooks, Blair said. He and several other analysts expect the new iPad to include at least a front-facing camera and support both CDMA and GSM wireless networks.

Apple is looking at using carbon fiber to create a stronger, lighter outer shell for its mobile devices, possibly including the iPad, AppleInsider speculates. This view is based on a new patent application from Apple published by the U.S.. Patent and Trademark Office.

"There are a lot of rumors going around, and Apple does a very good job of sitting back and letting the rumors circulate," Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research at iSuppli, told MacNewsWorld.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The Possible Truth

It's likely the new iPad will be released in the first quarter of 2011, William Stofega, a program director at IDC, told MacNewsWorld.

Apple's not likely to make any changes in the iPad's form factor for the next generation of the device, Alexander said.

"Apple's model is, when they issue a new release, they may incorporate new features, but they won't change the form factor unless there are serious problems," Alexander pointed out. "What we see from the supply side is plans for next year continuing the form factor they have."

The new iPad will have at least one camera, and perhaps even two because of demand from medical professionals who may want to photographically document injuries on their patients, Alexander speculated.

"We're seeing a fair amount of interest in the device from the medical community," Alexander said. "We've seen strong adoption of the iPhone among surgeons and physicians, and now they're going for the iPad as well."

iPad 2 review:

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