Sony Ericsson refused to bring the XPERIA X1 mobile phone to the event as it was a Windows Mobile phone, but Opera Software, who develops the well-known Opera Mini web browser, and the Opera Mobile web browser which has started to gain fame in certain markets, allowed us a hands-on.

The X1 is produced by HTC, features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard  that slides at an angle, a 3" touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixels of resolution, a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, which is far behind its competitors, has built-in A-GPS, and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with the Sony Ericsson Panels interface. There is also Bluetooth, WLAN, HSDPA, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The device might seem attractive to the enterprise consumer, as the price might not be attractive at all.

From my experience, the software is very weak and the interface takes long to respond to requests, even though it runs on a Qualcomm MSM7200 528MHz processor and has 256MB of RAM. The keys are quite small as well, but the typing can be conducted quite quickly. I do not advise the use of the small portrait on-screen keyboard.

More live hands-on images after the break.