The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is a budget Android smartphone, designed to bring Google’s OS and its myriad advantages to your pocket without, well, taking too much money out of it at the same time. It’s out now, which means the reviews are rolling in from all over websville. Want to know what the mobile phone experts make of Sony Ericsson’s latest venture into the world of Android? We’ve assembled some of the opinions and slotted them together to give you an overview. Want the scoop on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8? Then read on!
Design and build
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 bears more than a passing resemblance to the older Xperia X10 mini. As Phone Arena’s review points out, from a distance you could mistake them for the same phone. When you get closer, however, the X8 proves itself to be a larger handset with a standard 3-inch capacitive touchscreen. Know Your Mobile describes the X8 as looking “boxy”, “pretty cheap” and essentially so bulky that you’re left surprised at the lack of a slide-out QWERTY. Oh dear.
Know Your Mobile did like the handset’s buttons, at least, describing them as “conveniently placed”, and was pleasantly surprised at the presence of a capacitive rather than resistive touchscreen. That said, the reviewer did find the 320 x 480 resolution to be a tad low compared to most Android phones.
Software
CNET’s review quickly points out one of the main drawbacks to the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8: it uses Android 1.6 rather than the latest 2.2 version of the OS. That means a lot of Android’s better features – such as support for multiple Google accounts or Exchange email – aren’t supported. However, CNET likes the fact that Sony Ericsson has slapped its own user interface over the top of the regular Android UI, because it goes some way towards hiding the fact that it’s running Android 1.6.
Know Your Mobile describes the OS as laggy, reminding the reviewer that the X8 is a budget phone.
There’s Sony Ericsson’s Timescape social media app on board, integrating updates from Twitter and Facebook, texts and missed calls into a single feed. Phone Arena isn’t particularly impressed, calling it “a decent try, but not functional enough. For example, it doesn’t show you whole tweets, and when you attempt to tap on a tweet or update, hoping to see more of it, you get redirected to the mobile web page of the respective service. Not really deep stuff.”
The built-in web browser also comes in for criticism for its lack of pinch-to-zoom or double-tap zooming.
Extras
One thing CNET likes about the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 is its music capabilities: the bundled headphones are decent, the external speakers are surprisingly loud and getting music onto the phone is a cinch since it you can simply drag and drop from your PC or Mac via a USB link-up.
Phone Arena describes photos from the 3.2MP camera as “seriously lacking in detail”, with dull colours and blurry close-ups. Know Your Mobile, however, considers it to be “more than sufficient” for the type of phone it appears on.
Verdict
All three reviews feature some pretty heavy criticism for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8, with CNET and Know Your Mobile in particular suggesting that it feels outdated and underpowered. Phone Arena has a more positive take on it, mainly because it seems to make more allowances for the phone’s low spec than the other websites.
Phone Arena Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review score 7.5/10
Know Your Mobile Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review score 2/5
CNET Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 review score 2/5
