Sony Ericsson Launches Xperia X10 Android Phone

How time flies. We first saw Sony Ericsson's Android-powered Xperia X10 cell phone in November, 2009 and ran a full preview of the phone in April of this year. But it's taken until August for the X10 to find a home here in the U.S. with AT&T.

In the meantime, the phone has gone from being a mind-blowing Android world-beater to a midrange competitor. The X10 is a slab-style Android smartphone with a 4-inch screen, running a highly customized version of Android 1.6 on a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It's a competitor for Samsung's Captivate, costing $50 less and with various pluses and minuses: an older version of Android than Samsung's phone, but with a higher-megapixel camera and a very, very different UI skin.

That UI skin is going to be controversial; Sony Ericsson's "Timescape" and "Mediascape" integrate social networking and media experiences into the phone with a lot of complicated animations. In our preview, contributing editor Jamie Lendino found those animations to slow the X10 down - we'll see how they do on the final model.

The AT&T model of the X10 also has Microsoft Exchange integration, free Google Maps Navigation, and AT&T Navigator on board. The phone syncs with Sony Ericsson software for PCs to make it easy to put your music, videos, and photos on the X10.

Check out our preview for more details on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10; we'll have a full review of the AT&T model later this week. The phone goes on sale on August 15 for $149.99 with a two-year contract.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

US and Canadian mobile networks
Mobile phones released in the US
iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
Mobile hotspots
Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services.

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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