Smoky Cogs

If you thought that you are stuck with using Windows Mobile with your Xperia X1, you would be wrong. Of course, the only officially supported operating system is Windows Mobile, but that doesn’t stop you from tinkering a little.

XDA-Developers have released a version of Google Android that works on the Xperia X1. It is still missing a few features, such as the GPS functionality, but it works well.

Also from XDA-Developers is a port of Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 which gives you full-on Linux functionality on the X1.

It seems these days that we are fast heading to the days of being able to choose whichever OS we like to use on our phones, and that does make the future exciting!

My Xperia, running Windows Mobile 6.1, came preloaded with Internet Explorer and Opera, and I think that both of those browsers are sub-par on this phone.

Internet Explorer, besides just being a Microsoft product, doesn’t always render pages nicely, and flash is often a problem.

Opera, which was my favourite browser on my previous phone, the Sony Ericsson P990i, does not work half as well on the Xperia as it did on my old phone, and in fact tend to favour Internet Explorer over it.

Both of these browsers have been thrown aside now, however, as I now have a new favourite browser. Skyfire is by far the best phone for mobiles.

For one thing, this blog never rendered correctly on either IE or Opera on my mobile, without using a mobile-friendly theme. Skyfire, on the other hand, shows the blog EXACTLY as it would appear on a normal pc browser, and it is readable too.

Skyfire also offers good flash support, and audio and video streaming to boot, and that is not even mentioning the very apparent speed of rendering.

Skyfire simply outshines the competition on all fronts.

I had another fun adventure this weekend. Trying to upgrade the firmware on the sony Ericsson Xperia. This is easy enough…..that is if you are running Windows XP.

Downloading and installing the Sony Ericsson Update Service softrware and getting it set up is easy enough, but here it gets a little tricky.

The first tricky thing is that to put the phone into the update mode, where it shows the horizonal colour bands, which you need to do so that the update program can update the phone, is not as easy as advertised. To do so requires you to first press the volume button, and then the power button while holding down the volume button, and then keep both pressed until the phone switches on.

It took me several attempts to get this right, because if you get don’t press the buttons exactly right, it goes into normal mode, which you don’t want.

Now I encountered the second problem. I am running Windows Vista, and after putting the phone into update mode, the update application refused to pick up that the phone was connected. After reading a few forums, I tried running the application in my Windows XP VM I have on my machine, and it read the phone perfectly.

At this point I understood why they said you had to charge your phone fully before attempting an update. The update is a 160MB download, so unless you have a decent internet connection, this part is going to take a rather long time. I have a 3G connection, and it was relatively quick, but still rather painful.

Once the download completes, the phone gets updated and this part is rather quick.

After that whole operation I was pleased to notice a lot of the system settings had been kept, such as the internet connection settings. I did need to reinstall all my downloaded apps though, and set up my mail again, but all in all, the upgrade process was not too bad.

Ah, the joy of the free bi-annual contract upgrade. I love getting my new phone.

My newest choice, after much deliberation, was the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, which I got over the weekend. This phone is fantasic!

It is small and light, with a large screen taking up almost the entire face, and a very easy to use slide-out keyboard.

The phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, which has taken a few days to get totally used to, having previously been on Symbian phones. I know that Windows Mobile comes from the big evil, Microsoft, but I am finding it a really pleasurable experience using it. Being Windows, it interfaces incredibly well with my laptop, so I can easily transfer data and applications across.

I am also amazed at the slew of applications available for Windows Mobile, so I will have no shortage of new apps and games to try.

The one advertised downside of the phone is that it comes with a GPS, but not the GPS software, which you would have to download (and pay for) seperately. This almost swayed me away from it, however, after getting the phone, I discovered that the GPS in the phone is active and interfaces with Google Maps (comes pre-installed – very cool), and I have been able to download several free GPS applications for it. The feature I lose out on – unless I decide to pay – is a proper navigation system like on a TomTom or Garmin GPS unit.

All in all, I absolutely love this phone. It is by far the best phone I have ever owned. And no, I would not have been tempted by an iPhone. I specifically left out looking at the iPhone as I have serious issues with some of its features.

Anyway, I have to go play with my phone bit more now…..