Oh, that’s unfortunate. I’ve been eyeing this device since it was announced and have always thought the keyboard looked phenomenal. BGR is reporting, however, that the keyboard on the XPERIA X1 device is a “major flaw” – that’d definitely be a deal-breaker for more than a few people, myself included.
Not to say that this keyboard is absolutely terrible, but it’s one of the worst. Think Sony UX computer, for those of you that have one or have used one. The sliding mechanism comes right on top of the keys, and thus, the keys don’t travel a lot when pressed. They give little to no feedback despite having a cool triangular design.
Aside from the keyboard, everything else appears to be pretty delightful. The 800×480 screen would make surfing the web and watching movies on this thing much more palatable. The device that BGR got ahold of is only a pre-production unit, so “the software runs a little slow,” but the XPERIA still seems to perform admirably and should only improve with the final version. I don’t suppose that Sony-Ericsson is going to revamp the keyboard before the rumored September launch, though.
“Not to say that this keyboard is absolutely terrible…..They give little to no feedback despite having a cool triangular design.” I don’t see any “triangular design” on the keyboard, so are you talking about the keyboard, the keypad under the screen or both?
Good question. If you look really close up at the keys, they’re each sort of divided in half diagonally and slightly raised along the split-line, which creates a beveled effect and makes the rectangular keys sort of look like two triangles.
Check out the last photo in the gallery here:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/gallery/handsets/sony-ericsson-xperia-x1-hands-on/?page=1
I’ve seen two indepth video reviews of guys who had the phone for a few days…even weeks
Bengalboy and the MPC portal dude both said the keyboard is very easy to use
Boygenious doesn’t have any footage of the phone yet at all
He probably made that statement after about 5 minutes of use
So his opinion holds no weight to me
I agree with Rellz: Bengalboy is using this device since some weeks now and if he says the keyboard is IMPRESSIVE we should believe HIM not boygenius…