The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

At 4.7 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is only slightly larger than the iPhone.The X10 comes through with a 4-inch screen which makes it larger than most touch-screen phones currently on the market and a rich resolution (65,536 colors; 854x480 pixels). Graphics, photos, and colors are sharp and vibrant, and can see the display relatively well in direct light. The touch interface was accurate and responsive, both when tapping icons and swiping through long lists. It even was responsive at the very edges of the display. It weighs only about 4.8 ounces.

The X10's virtual keyboard is very close to the standard Android design, but it offers a few unique elements. In landscape mode it takes advantage of the display's full size so you have plenty of room for typing. There are three rows of alphabetic/punctuation keys with separate keyboards for numbers and symbols and other punctuation. You also get a special pop-up keyboard above the alphabetic buttons that includes smileys and some symbols. That's particularly convenient since it puts oft-used characters, like a dollar sign and parentheses, right on the main screen. The space bar is conveniently located in the center of the bottom row.

The X10 also has an autocomplete function and dictionary. Instead of just one possible choice when writing a word, the X10 offers up to 20 possible choices. For example, if you type "it" you get not only "its" as an option, but also "itself," "Italy," "item," and even "ignore." What's more, the X10 is adept at remembering previously used words and offering them as suggestions even if they aren't in the dictionary. After typing "germank" just once, we got it as a suggestion each time we started typing another word that begins with G.

Below the display are the X10's only physical controls. The Home key, back button, and menu control are large and tactile, so we had no trouble using them. On the left spine you'll find the volume rocker and a camera shutter. The latter is a rather small, but it didn't pose a problem. On the top of the phone are the 3.5mm headset jack, the power control, and the Micro-USB port for the charger and syncing cable. We give Sony Ericsson major points for ditching the proprietary connections and including a microSD card slot. The slot is located behind the battery cover, but we'll let that slide in this case since we aren't stuck with a Memory Stick Micro format.