SE Xperia X1 vs the HTC Touch Pro - where the Xperia is clearly ahead

Having been accused of being biased against the Xperia X1, I thought I better try and balance the books a bit and note explicitly the areas where I think the Xperia is clearly ahead. These areas may in fact be the deal makers and deal breakers when it comes to choosing between the two.

Firstly, the hand feel of the Xperia is definitely better, due to the slimmer, thinner and lighter design which is more reminiscent of a candybar phone than the slightly more blocky Touch Pro.

Secondly, the all metal construction of the Xperia does speak more to quality than the all plastic construction of the Touch Pro.

800×480 at 3 inches clearly beats 640×480 at 2.8 inches, even if the software does not always take advantage of it.

The Xperia’s 3.5 mm headphone jack also clearly beats whatever the Touch Pro has to offer.

Buttons – again the Xperia has a plethora of them, including a camera button which makes taking a picture 3 times faster on the Xperia than on the Touch Pro.

Lets not forget the Xperia does VGA video recording while the Touch Pro only does piddling QVGA.

Phone reception – its close, but the Xperia is better at holding on to a signal than the Touch Pro.

Phone sound quality – the earphone is louder and clearer on the Xperia and the Touch Pro, with none of the “sweet spot” nonsense of the Touch Pro.

WIFI reception is definitely much better on the Xperia, with much better range than the Touch Pro.

Battery life – I think is good on both, but the Xperia has more mAh, and does seem to last longer than the Touch Pro.

More open development environment for their skins – Touchflo3D has no SDK (and badly needs it) while Panels, while it has less community support, is actually an open platform which anyone can develop for.

The last advantage the SE Xperia has over the HTC Touch Pro is in those two little letters – SE. Sony Ericsson is an established brand name, and when some-one sees the Xperia and see the little Sony Ericsson logo the device suddenly seems more familiar, accessible and desirable, and people who would not touch a Windows Mobile smartphone suddenly sees something they can actually work with.

I am sure there are many other advantages which I can not recall at the moment. Why don’t you leave a comment at the end of the article and I will include it in the article (but only if I feel its objective enough).

Both the Xperia X1 and HTC Touch Pro are available on Expansys (affiliate link).