One of the few smartphones that comes close to matching the massive screen size of the HTC Desire HD is the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. On the face of it, the Xperia X10 and the HTC Desire HD are similar in many ways, portability and weight wise especially. But the HTC Desire HD is also going to end up pricier than the Xperia X10, by around £5-10 per month on contract. So what do you get for your extra cash? We’ve put the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 up against the HTC Desire HD to decide which is more deserved of your dollar.
Operating system and skin
The Xperia X10 runs Android 1.6, with the Sony Ericsson skin. The Android Eclair 2.1 update is due, but has been a long time coming, and was delayed at the end of last month. Problems we encountered at testing included the phone conking out completely during social networking syncs. 1.6 is not strong enough to support this larger than average smartphone, although if you go for the Xperia X10 Mini, it handles like a dream. However, it’s not a patch on the Android Froyo 2.2 with HTC Sense that the HTC Desire HD is packing.
Winner: HTC Desire HD
Camera
The camera on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is one of its strongest features: 8.1MP, with a 16x digital zoom, face and smile detection, flash, autofocus and an image stabiliser. The HTC Desire HD is strong competition though: a dual LED flash for its 8MP camera, autofocus, face detection and effects like depth of field and vignettes. Often, with smartphone cameras, the proof is in the pudding, and the lens is a key factors in what it spits out. Because we’ve not put the HTC Desire HD through its paces yet, and also because of how useful smile detection can be with grumpy families and friends, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 wins this one by a hair.
Winner: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
Video
The HTC Desire HD has 720p HD video recording, whereas HD video recording for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 will be arriving with the Android 2.1 update. But that’s currently nowhere to be found.
Winner: HTC Desire HD
Screen
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 WVGA screen clocks in at 4”, with 480×854 pixels. The HTC Desire HD 4.3” WVGA screen is 480×800 pixels. This means that the Xperia X10 has 54 more pixels, in a space 0.3” smaller than the HTC Desire HD. What’s the upshot? That even the pickiest of us would barely be able to tell the differece between the two screens.
Winner: Too close to tell
Extras
As a complement to the OS skin, the HTC Sense on the HTC Desire HD will link up with cloud service HTC Sense.com, which offers similar remote tracking, location and data control to MobileMe, but for free. This is a massive bonus, meaning that if you’ve lost your phone in the house, on silent, you can force it to ring from your computer. You can also see where it is if you’ve left it out and about, or if you think it’s been stolen. While a service like this is often only needed once in a blue moon, it could make all the difference between frantic despair and a sigh of relief. In lots of ways it’s not really fair to ‘compare’ this with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, because the latter has nothing comparable to HTCSense.com. But that’s exactly the point: the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is completely lacking in this department, albeit a department for when we’re careless and forgetful. But we’re all a bit like that sometimes, and HTC is helping us out of a hole.
Winner: HTC Desire HD
Conclusion
The UI and the OS for the Sony Ericsson is its biggest let down. While it’s packing a lot of great features, these are lacking support, at least until the elusive Android 2.1 update arrives. The bonus bits the HTC Desire HD has, like HTCSense.com, on top of Froyo with HTC Sense skin, means it ends up standing heads above the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. It just goes to show, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
What do you think? Could the Xperia X10 compete with the HTC Desire HD if it got its promised 2.1 update? Drop us a line in the comments and tell us what you think!
