OK, so now that I’ve gotten the device on the internet and tried out it’s capabilities to surf around. I wanted to see how it played back videos and music. I took my 4GB microSD card out of my Nokia N95, and plugged it into the Xperia. Just in case people don’t know, the Xperia is only the second device that Sony Ericsson has ever made that actually uses MicroSD and not their horrid Memory Stick format, which is excellent. The bad side is that Sony Ericsson stuck the memory slot right behind the battery cover, so you need to pry the cover off to get access to the slot, and it doesn’t come off that easily.

On my memory card, I have about a years worth of videos and photos, taken with the n95. The n95 takes video directly in .mp4 format, and does so very well. I was sorely disappointed though to learn how badly the Xperia plays these files. The n95 comes with a version of Real Player, and plays back the .mp4’s perfectly. The Xperia will play them, but the frame rate and audio sync are beyond poor, I believe it probably had a frame rate of 1 frame a second ( I am not joking! ). These same .mp4’s also play back flawlessly on my iPod Touch, when moved to it by dragging from the memory card onto my iPod in iTunes. Very sad indeed.

The next thing I tried were some Divx files I converted using Divx Convertor. WinMo doesn’t support Divx, but the folks at Divx offer a free Mobile Divx player. I downloaded the latest one and installed it. The program ran, but it was clearly not designed for the immense resoltution of the Xperia. The text and options were impossible to click on with your finger, so I had to use the stylus, and even then, it was hard to read the options. Playback was also relatively poor, but at least it was better then the .mp4’s…

Lastly, I had some .3gp files I converted with 3gpConverter. I compressed them using the PSP playback settings of QVGA/29.97fps/768Kbps Stereo/126kps. I found this setup makes .3gp files that playback nicely on my PSP, Onda, N95 and the Xperia X1.

My video experience with the X1 is a tad disappointing. I would have hoped that with all this horsepower that it would at least play the mp4 files, but alas, no. So, the Xperia won’t be replacing my Creative Zen or Onda VX770 anytime soon.

Continuing on from my Day One post, I’ve stuck my T-Mobile Sim card into the device, and powered it on. To my surprise, the battery was fully charged, and the device auto detected the T-Mobile network settings. All wasn’t quite right though. The phone could make and receive calls, and the calls were nice and clear. However, trying to use my newly added data plan, the settings found T-Mobile’s EDGE network fine, but I could not access the internet. I then decided to try and see if things worked over my wireless network, and that work fine. Good speeds over my Wifi network, and it was easy to set up. The browser timed out with the following obscure error: http error:$CODE$.

So, now, I was stuck, something obviously wasn’t right with the T-Mobile network configuration. It worked the night before on my Nokia N95, so, I know the data portion of my plan is setup correctly. So, I went over to my local T-Mobile shop, and showed off the phone to the drooling store manager. Unfortunately, he wasn’t much help. I then went home and gave T-Mobile support a call. I didn’t know how they would treat me, since I’m in the US, using an unlocked/unsupported phone. Luckily, they were very pleasant (I’ve had good luck with T-Mobile, which is why I’m still a customer). I got sent over to Tier 3 support, and although the nice young lady on the other end wasn’t quite sure what to do, she had a script about setting up network connections on Windows Mobile devices. So, she got me to the general area to where I needed to fix. So, here’s the fix folks:

1. Go to the START menu -> Settings.
2. Click the Connections tab.
3. Click Connections Icon.
4. Select “Add a new modem connection“.
5. Give the connection some name, this isn’t important. Select Cellular Line (GPRS, 3G) for the modem. Click Next.
6. Access Point Name needs to be internet2.voicestream.com (I believe this is for the $25 add-on data plan, I recall someplace on the net I found a reference to internet3 for the next tier data plan). Click Next.
7. Leave the next set of options blank and click FINISH.
8. Back on the Connections page, click the “Set up my proxy server” option. Make sure you check the box next to “This network connects to the internet“.
9. Now the important one, click the Modem tab at the bottom. Select the connection you just added, make sure you DO NOT have the Auto Pick option selected.
10. Done, now you should be ready to surf the day away!

It turns out the problem stems from the phone auto detecting wap.voicestream.com access point, which I believe is their t-zones server. So, that was a fun waste of a few hours. So hopefully this information will help someone out.

Now that I got onto the net, how is the browser experience… With Internet Explorer, not so fantastic, but with Mobile Operat 9.5 it hurt less. This area is where the iPhone and iPod Touch’s trump the Windows Mobile device. The screen is already small, but with the resolution so high on this device the text is just that smaller. I’m now spoiled by the iPhone’s multi-touch zoom and overal responsiveness of the iPhone Safari browser. But Opera works well enough, and once I got used to working with it, I was equally productive. I was able to easily setup my Windows Messaging to pull email from my yahoo and google email accounts. The next thing I need to do, is sync it with my Exchange server at work.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about my experiences with hooking the thing up to my PC.

Fedex delivered on my package on the promised date, around 10am, and I was ecstatic beyond words at its arrival. The box itself is pretty simple, and smaller than I would have expected. Below are my snapshots of the box and it’s contents.

Opening the BoxPretty Box

Opening the Box

Look at all the hardware

Upon actually holding it, the first thing I noticed was how incredible it felt, the build quality of the phone is exceptional, many of the parts are actually metal! The phone is quite small, I think partly due to it’s side to side width (it’s a tall phone).

So, that’s in the box, well, we have a usb cable, a outlet converter for the usb cable, so you can charge it through its usb cable by plugging it into the wall. An extra stylus, ear buds, and a standard sony connector which has some basic walkman controls on it. The box has some simple to look at quick documentation, and a CD for the Activesync and Wayfinder GPS software (more on this later).

OK, so now what, well, it’s time to put the SIM card and battery in. For reference, my old phone is a Nokia N95, it’s a fantastic phone, and it’s still for the most part a top of the line phone, which has no equal in the US (as far as Nokia offers here).

Swapping SIM

To swap the SIM cards, I need to open up both phones, the first thing I noticed on the X1 is how sturdy the door was, it’s made of metal! My Nokia’s is a rather thin plastic door, it’s surprisingly durable, but it feels awefully fragile in comparison.You’ll also notice how much larger the battery on the X1 is too.

So, one the SIM was in, I powered it on, it took a bit to boot up, but it found my T-Mobile settings without issue, that is, the phone settings. Internet access was a problem, I’ll get to this a little later. The X1 screen sports a 800×480 screen! This is double the resolution of an IPhone or any other phone out there and at only 3 inches, needless to say, the screen is awesome!

For now, I’ll end this entry off with a snapshot of the X1 compared to my Nokia n95 and my trusty old Motorola Razr. I’ll let you be the judge for how it stacks up size wise, but in my opinion, the size is quite good in comparison, the thickness (which you can’t see here) is on par with the Nokia, and of course my Razr is much thinner.

Side by side with some of my older phones

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

For those that don’t know, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 the company’s latest Smartphone. It is probably the most advanced one to make it to market today, and I believe is a truely worthy contender in the iPhone killer category. My wife has blessed me with pre-ordering one for me, and it’s supposed to come in tomorrow!!! I can hardly contain my excitement for it! I’m itching to see how it stacks up with the capabilities of my iPod Touch — Yes I know what you’re thinking, the iPod Touch isn’t a cellphone, but I believe it’s pretty close, since I’m really not going to compare the two on their merits as a phone, but more along the lines of what productivity (and entertainment) enhancements the device offers. Besides, I’m not about to plunk down the cash for a two year data plan with AT&T when I already have T-Mobile (I’ll go on this rant another time). I promise to give a personal overview of the device when I get to spend some quality time with it over the holiday weekend!

If anyone cares to look, here’s a link to Sony Ericsson’s site about the X1. Click here to find out about the X1.

Welcome to my blog / website, this site is dedicated to the ongoing struggle of how humans interface with machines. Since the dawn of the computer age man has struggled to interface efficiently with machines. Over the last 30+ years, since computers made their way into our homes, we have made significant progress in how we interface with them, but the methods are still not as seamless as the prospect of one day plugging directly into one. Each step taken over the years has been quite evolutionary, and I myself have quite a collection of many of these efforts. I’ve decided to dedicate my efforts to sharing my thoughts, knowledge, and passion for this endeavour with the world. Thanks for visiting.

Dower