Thursday, July 09, 2009

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - all types of Fail

The last few weeks I have been getting quite frustrated with my Experia X1 mobile running Windows Mobile 6.1. It seems that whilst I don't have that many applications on it its got very "sticky". Its almost like a full version of Windows running in that sometimes something sparks up, then dies, but there is no indication of it running yet you just know its in there somewhere clogging up the processor.
On several trips to London it seems to get itself even more confused. To the point I have started turning on aicraft mode when traveling around so that it does not get itself confused with wireless networks, 3g, 3.5g, edge etc. All that seems to bork it big time.It then needs multiple power offs and battery removal none of which seems to quite work.
The really weird thing was that on my Windows vista desktop, once I started trying to use the synch for all the address and contacts (as opposed to XP that I had on my previous work laptop) I found that it really did not work very well. In fact moving to a MacBook Pro proved easier to synch that with a windows to windows option! Using the brilliant missing synch I atleast felt I had things backed up. They may be on Vista but it is so unstable I cant trust it.
With my wife's iphone having a recent and significant software upgrade, that went very smoothly, I thought I should really try and use the Sony Ericsson updater service to patch the phone. I was half expecting to get a great Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade, but my initial excitement was soon dashed when it turned out that Vista could not do the update properly. Not only that but the phones archaic update process means that you loose all your setting and it wipes the phone, plus you have to do some weird bios mode, holding the power and volume buttons until you see coloured stripes. (A bit different to the plug, download and synch of the iphone eh?).
I wrote the the customer service asking why Vista did not work with Windows mobile and this phone for updating. The answer "oh just send us your phone for 10 days and we will do it". Fail!
Obviously there is no Mac updater, and I am not putting bootcamp and XP on this Mac just to patch the phone
Luckily I found a XP machine and used that. I say luckily as whilst it did an update I can't say I cant see, nor feel much difference. It did manage to wipe all the settings and programs. So I had to dig up a few things, lost some of the much bragged about Panels, and I really cant be bothered to install them again.
So the upshot is that I am very unlikely to bother with any Sony Ericsson phone again, and certainly not a Windows Mobile one. I know that is the obvious thing anyway, but really life is too short to faff around. With all these wonderful phones like the iphone around that just work, just update, just deliver there really is no room for this sort of slack deployment.
Its turned out the camera is not that good, often very washed out, not a patch on the Nokia N95 (so sorry for the Shozu uploaded pictures that look rubbish until I fiddle with them). I did not get another Iphone as we already had one and I was not yet an Apple convert (yes I know I know!) and it did not do video as the new 3Gs does, but the X1 video gets very clunky as the Windows Mobile wants to go off and do something else it thinks is much more important. These crashy threads are the programs that seem not to be running but are that warm teh phone up and eat the battery sometime.
I guess I should have known, given how hard it was to get the thing int eh first place, but I was feeling pioneering again.
Oh and the keyboard (the best bit) has started to not work very well on the bottom row.
Starting to look like an epic Fail.