The good folks at Engadget were present at Sony Ericsson’s unveiling event for their Android smartphone, the XPERIA X10 (at long last, we now know what it’s called- the X10, rather than the X3). The phone’s looks impressed Engadget, but the performance of the early build version that they got their hands on was less impressive-
“Calling the present interface “laggy” would be paying it an unearned compliment. We got the gist of what SE was trying to do here, but there’s absolutely no way to evaluate whether the company has succeeded when usability was this low. With its Donut not even half baked, SE faces quite a challenge in trying to deliver its promised release in the first quarter of 2010″
It is important to note that this was far from the completed product, and I’m sure all the interface issues will be ironed out come release. I do wonder though, how close the interface will be to the super-slick concept videos that have ‘leaked’ (eg, the media player vid below). I know a lot of people are very excited by the interface. If SE can deliver on their conceptual designs, they’re on to a winner.
Engadget’s hands on review can be found here.