Product Listing

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - The Full Xperience

By Seow Tein Hee - 29 Oct 2008

Interface - Productivity

Xtra Toppings

Sony Ericsson has put all its eggs into one basket, in a very literal sense. This basket is known as the X-Panel, and the eggs are a myriad of panels that's aimed to enhance the user interface. According to Sony Ericsson, with the X1 fresh out of the box, it'll be bundled with 7 unique panels for you to switch and tinker with. Technically though, it's actually 6, as two of the panels share the same interface, but is categorized differently to allow the user to customize each panel according to situational needs, i.e. work or entertainment panels. The 7 panels are listed as accordingly:

  • Xperia Panel
  • 3D Fish Panel
  • Google Panel
  • Media Xperience Panel
  • XperiaRadio Panel
  • Sony Ericsson Panel 1
  • Sony Ericsson Panel 2

And here, is the all important X-Panel. With just one click, you'll gain access to the 7 basic panels bundled with the retail unit, and there's more panels to download from the Sony Ericsson website.

You'll have access to 9 pre-selected panels, and should you have more panels, you can remove the existing panels and add more.

More importantly, customization plays a major role in the X1's features, and Sony Ericsson is all for developers to be creative and introduce more panels that'll improve the usability of its device. As such, the X-Panel SDK has already been distributed amongst interested developers (available for aspiring developers too from its distribution portal that's easily accessible), and after a thorough vetting process, completed panels are available for download on the Sony Ericsson website for your choosing.

Sony Ericsson Panel 1 and 2

The X-Panel is essentially an add-on module to the existing Windows Mobile user interface. The most basic of it all, the Xperia Panel, won't be removable due to it being the primary user interface. Other than that, the other included panels would boil down to two main segmentation: productivity and entertainment. Looking at the productivity suites, we have the Sony Ericsson Panel 1 and Sony Ericsson Panel 2, which is easily customizable according to your needs. As such, you can even assign program shortcuts on the Launcher, giving you direct access to your favorite or most frequently used programs.

The Sony Ericsson Panels will display the relevant information such as Calendar, Mails, Calls, and even direct access to RSS feeds from the web. It could get a little cramped, so perchance you'd like to remove some of the clutter...

...you'll notice that you can even alternate the color scheme, change the layout of the clock and calendar (such as having just only the clock displayed) and reduce the clutter by unchecking the connectivity buttons option and reduce the number of appointments and tasks displayed.

Similarly, the Launcher tab will also be customizable according to your whims, giving you direct access to your most frequently used programs.

And with the Launcher tab added in, your Sony Ericsson Panel will look like this. As such, you can freely customize both Sony Ericsson panels according to the situation, e.g. work or play, and switch accordingly to your mood too.

Google Panel

Web junkies will definitely welcome the Google Panel, as it brings you straight to the Google search page. For us, it was clear and simple: click on the X-Panel button, select Google Panel, enter the desired search words, and voila, we'll be surfing the web on the Internet Explorer. However, for surfers who aren't advocates of the Internet Explorer web browser, an alternative exists in the form of the bundled Opera Mobile Browser, which in our opinion, serves and functions better as a web browser.

The Google Panel won't need much introduction, if you're at all familiar with the layout. You'll notice that besides the search engine, you gain access to the myriad of Google service such as Maps, Google Mail, Google Calendar and even Google Photos.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.