Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 officially debuts on AT&T: $130 on contract
By Darren Murph 
posted August 9th 2010 10:17AM
posted August 9th 2010 10:17AM
Update: Yep, it's Android 1.6. Commence weeping.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
AT&T and Sony Ericsson Announce the Xperia™ X10
Smart meets entertaining - Sony Ericsson's flagship Android smartphone offers an open and integrated world of communication, entertainment and social media
DALLAS and ATLANTA, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T* and Sony Ericsson today announced a dynamic multimedia experience with the Android™ based Xperia™ X10, available August 15. The Xperia™ X10 introduces Sony Ericsson's unique and entertainment-driven Xperia™ platform to U.S. customers in a cutting-edge, beautiful and fun package.
The Xperia™ X10 comes fully loaded with a 4-inch crystal clear touch display, superfast 1GHz Snapdragon processor and a GPS. The smartphone also features an 8.1 megapixel camera with smile detection, face recognition, autofocus and LED flash. The device comes with 8 GB of on-board memory and a 2 GB in-box memory card, with expandable memory up to 32 GB.
Sony Ericsson's custom user experience is great for the intersection of communications and entertainment. Two signature applications, Mediascape and Timescape™, build on the Android platform to enhance the experience for users.
* Mediascape on the Xperia ™ X10 gathers music, photos, videos and content from your phone's memory card and online, letting you browse, search, listen and share your media from one unified view. For example, view photos taken on the device as well as your Facebook® and Picasa™ web albums. Or, when listening to a favorite song on your phone, press Sony Ericsson's infinite button to access related content about the artist pulled from the phone's memory as well as albums, songs and video content from YouTube™ and search results from Google.
* Timescape™ is a unique communication application that automatically organizes social interactions in chronological order, leaving users free to concentrate on keeping in touch on-the-go. From Facebook® and Twitter® updates to photos, emails and text messages, a scrolling menu offers easy viewing and organization of all communications. Additionally, tap the Timescape™ infinite button to bring up and view all communications from a single person in a single place.
"Sony Ericsson has created a unique choice for our smartphone customers looking for a fun and smart device," said Michael Woodward, vice president, Mobile Phone Portfolio, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.
"Sony Ericsson is raising the bar for entertainment-rich phones with the launch of the Xperia ™ X10," said Paul Hamnett, senior vice president, Sony Ericsson North America. "With the convergence of our user experience platform and the Android OS, we are bringing consumers a smartphone experience that is not only exciting, but also very refined. Following the successful global launch of the Xperia™ X10, we are pleased to partner with AT&T to launch this phone in the U.S. market."
Pricing and Availability
The Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 smartphone will be available in black at AT&T stores, authorized retailers and www.wireless.att.com on August 15 for $149.99 after a two-year service agreement and minimum smartphone data plan.
For the complete lineup of AT&T offerings, visit www.att.com.
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.
Viewable screen display area is measured diagonally.
A portion of memory is used for data management purposes.
Data charges apply for content and updates transferred through the mobile Web.
Can it do multitouch yet? Many Android UI elements and apps/games depend on it...
@JONNNathannn
Is definitely a LOT cheaper than I was expecting.
*Breaking*?
@ravissimo sony thought it was...
is it capacitive or resistive screen?
@JONNNathannn
Boy, Sony is really bringing the heat. Hopefully others will lower prices as well.
@JONNNathannn
If this is the same phone from Canada, then No. It will never be able to do multitouch because it's a hardware issue.
@JONNNathannn
If you're still using Android 1.6, you blew it.
@Sea Urchin
Bringing the heat? This was a great phone LAST year, now its no better than the Evo or droid x. If this is in fact running 1.6, then they would have been nuts to ask for anything more than $149.
@JONNNathannn Its funny how AT&T has kept shitty phone for the last 4 years. Now that they will loose the iPhone they wanna go and get a shit load of phones and embrace android. Die and rot AT&T. I waited around forever the get a different phone bcuz I was sick of the BS with my iPhone. Well now I'm with sprint and loving my EVO and my waaaayyyy cheaper plan FU AT&T but I still will only use Mac computers.
@KingpinEX
Capacitive
@Aaquibn
If you keep making you blew it jokes, you blew it
@dhamp2g
Well, AT&T does have the Samsung Captivate which is a very appealing phone, and the strongest Android phone hardware-wise at the moment. I still can't believe AT&T is getting the X10 now when we here in Canada have had it for a while. It's a great phone, and if it had 512MB RAM and multi-touch+Froyo, I would probably pick it up over the Samsung Captivate.
@fatjoe3 Browser/gallery use mutlitouch, apps use it, games use it, nicer app store keyboards use it (no multitouch is why everyone hates the stock keyboard), it's not a mystery
@JONNNathannn No multitouch and Android 1.X in the age of Froyo Droid's and Evos is an embarrassment. And 3.0 is coming in 3 months!
Sony Ericsson fails to launch a competitive feature complete phone yet again. Completely lame.
@JONNNathannn
Captivate is a better deal.. better specs (maybe the X10s camera is better) buts thats about it.
@JONNNathannn
its DEFINITELY an updated X10!
look at the photo! the interface is very different!
@BharatiJanta
I guess... a pc w/ Windows 3.1 would probably be cheaper too. Seriously, Sony, wth?
@fatjoe3
Checking WikiPedia says that it has 384 MB of memory (which I believe is RAM since the specs don't mention RAM anywhere else). Also, I've heard that this is very hard to put custom ROMs in/I don't think it has been done yet because not many US developers have been working on it since AT&T didn't have the phone until now. Who knows, we might see X10 development rise now that it's introduced to a new market, albeit, a bit late.
@ALBGunner04 *If* grandma would have balls, grandma would be grandpa.
Too many ifs, pal.
@KingpinEX It's Android 1.6 - doesn't matter :(
@Tooonces
I have a question for all of you people asking about 1.6 or 2.1 or 2.2. Do you think that matters at all to the average consumer? How many average consumers even know the difference between the different softwares? I am going to say 9 out of 10 people don't know and really do not care.
One day you nerd people may understand in the business world it is not about specs. It's about name recognition. No one cares if it has a certain software. They just like that it is Sony and it is android. Same reason people like iPhones. Because it is apple.
@JONNNathannn I want, F-pinch to Zoom besides its getting a upgrade to 3.0 thats why it has 1000MHZ guys this will blow the competition out the water.
@businessman25
Who is buying high end Android phones on AT&T besides nerds?
@businessman25
Plus your username is businessman! Who refers to themselves as a businessman anymore? I think you are one of use (i.e. nerds)
@KingpinEX It is a high end Sony Smartphone running Android, of course it's not resistive
@Sea Urchin
HTC Aria is at the same price with better looking design (at least to me), and the most important to these smart phones the OS... its 2.1... and should get 2.2 obviously sooner than this sony thing is going to get..
@fatjoe3 Try playing NES emulated games. I guarantee you Mega Man and Mario will be a bitch to play without being able to press two buttons simultaneously.
@businessman25 Well I just saw two of my non-techie friends on Facebook talking about upgrading their Evos to 2.2, so maybe more than you'd think.
@KingpinEX Capacitive screen.
@massradius It may not be high end still have the 1GHZ processor on it led flash and 8.1MP Camera that's all I care for and will be getting it and the 2.1 will be available later this year so I can wait a while for that.
@PBB
Exactly, I skipped this and went for the mini pro instead.
@businessman25 i guess once you'll buy an android 1.6 device you'l understand the difference! the official twitter for android app doesnt work for 1.6, and so are many popular apps. now as google made a new version of that OS means they have made a lot improvements, if u wanna pay your money for an outdated thing while u could get a latest for the same, go for it!
@businessman25
I am so sick and tired of the "average consumer" argument. That is no excuse for shitty hardware, outdated software, lacking central features, etc. The average consumer can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned. I'm not buying this phone for the average consumer, I'm buying this phone for me, damn it, and if it doesn't do what I want it to do then I'm not getting it. So in this case, the precious "average consumer" is completely irrelevant.
@businessman25 And they will return when it doesn't run the same apps their friends Android can. Sorry buddy, just because the average person doesn't understand the difference doesn't work.Fragmentation continues to be an issue as hardware manufacturers continue to release outdated products.
@dhamp2g a-hole, say what you want about the iPhone. It has been incredibly successful and lucrative for AT&T. Every carrier would kill to have the iPhone let alone exclusively. Go stick you EVO up your butt.
Nice is it Android 1.6???????? If this is 2.2 this could be my next phone!
@wakeup Why the heck do mfrs not include what version of Android it's coming with??? Wouldn't that be like selling a Windows machine and failing to state whether it has XP, Vista or 7 pre-installed?
@wakeup
You don't want Android 2.2 yet! It has major problems with audio that break Slacker and Pandora!
See http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9308
@CRA1G Pretty much
@CRA1G I think it's actually running 1.5. I remember everyone giving them crap about that in January or something. They don't say, because they don't want you to know.
@wakeup Kinda sad everyone is hoping for Android 2.x on the X10 when at the same time us Nexus One owners are waiting on Android 3.x to be released to us later this year.
@wakeup
It's 1.6, that's why they won't mention it.
Sony's Official Blog says that 2.1 will come out at the end of Q3, whereas 2.2 will be end of the year.
@MobileGeorge
I have 2.2 on my Nexus One and Pandora plays fine.
@CRA1G
Well, closer analogy is whether it is SP1 2 or 3...
@Drethis
wait, so they actually plan on including updates?? That would definately help the situation, if they follow through.
And if everyones complaining about the x10 now, Sony has 3 more android phones that I know of, coming out "soon". The x10 mini, x10 mini pro, and the x8. This will get interesting...
@Iromania
Pretty much, I think the X8 will come with 2.1 when it's released. That may be around the end of September anyway.
X10 still doesn't have multitouch (hardware doesn't support it) which is a huge downer. :/
@Drethis ffff
fragmentation
@Killafiend
On Android 2.2, Pandora plays fine over WiFi (where it uses MP3), but the sound quality is terrible over 3G (where it uses AAC+). Google broke the AAC+ decoder with 2.2 and still hasn't released a fix. Avoid 2.2 if you like to stream Pandora or Slacker in your car.
@wakeup
So Samsung gets hated on because they supposedly cannot do frequent updates, but here comes Sony with a 1.6 android phone. Samsung promises end of month 2.2 for GS phones. This phone has been out for almost a year out of state and not even 2.1 til the end of the year, and 2.2 til next year?