The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is a dream smartphone handset in a lot of ways, and the launch of the Xperia brand shows they have learnt a lot from the days of the temperamental P-series phones and their myriad of problems. Nevertheless, the X1 is in equal parts the single most impressive and most infuriating phone currently on the market!

The design is definitely one of the Xperia's strongest suits, with accents of burnished metal giving it a stylish and eye-catching look. The magnificent 3.8-inch 800x480 resolution screen gives an unparalleled clarity of both images and text. There is a real weighty feel to the handset, giving the impression it means business from the outset. The executive flair the Xperia brand represents is well embodied in the X1.

But the X1 is equally multimedia ready with a 3.5mm headphone jack, wi-fi connectivity, FM radio, and a media player that handles the usual file formats capably.

The only negative aesthetic point is that the phone's screen is recessed by about half a millimetre into the face of the device, making it a fluff magnet in the corners and also very difficult to press 'ok' or 'cancel' without using a stylus, as they are stuck in the upper right. After bein spoilt by the touchscreen smoothness of the iPhone and the Omnia, have such an unresponsive screen it is tough adjustment.

Now...the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. Whether you think this is a good or a bad thing depends entirely on your familiarity with Windows Mobile. The slightly sluggish nature of the phone, the dizzying array of nested options and imprecise touch gestures (which can be offset slightly by using the included stylus), all these issues can be levelled at the operating system.

By the same token, there are also Windows Mobile plus points of a huge number of downloadable applications available, completely customisable menus and fully-featured programs like Office Mobile, making the X1 more of a mini PC than merely a handset.Inside the directional keys lies a 'select' button which doubles as an optical mouse. The optical mouse has a woolly inexact feeling to navigate with, and has little point without a pointer to use it with. The build quality of all the directional keys leaves a lot to be desired, in fact. Such loose plastic buttons on a high-end device is very disappointing.

Sliding the screen out to the right from the base reveals the Xperia's keypad. The phone slides out with a satisfying 'click', and continues to allure with its looks with a curved profile as the metallic buttons are revealed. The keys are very well spaced for quick and easy typing, but they are far too recessed into the body to be easily pressed in.

An extra millimetre could've made all the difference, but it becomes something to get used to rather than perfection from the outset. Also, the spacing has meant that there is a 'function' as well as a shift key to access numbers and symbols. This slows things down in typing, and the HTC Touch Pro has shown that number keys can fit in a slider of this kind.

The Touch Pro is in fact the same as the X1 in a number of ways, including sharing a manufacturer in HTC, despite Sony Ericsson taking all the credit for the software. The two phones are also on an even footing as far as specs are concerned.The differences come in how the two handsets have tried desperately to tart up the decidedly workmanlike Windows Mobile interface. Whilst the Touch series of HTC phones had Touch Flo, the Xperia X1 has Panels.

These 9 panels are probably the most disappointing feature of the X1, simply because it is far less impressive than initial impressions suggest. These panels consist of a number of different programs, said to be running concurrently and accessible at any time. Expect they aren't. What the panels are is a grid of low-res thumbnails showing different programs.

Four of these panels are home screens (including the impressive SPB Mobile Shell), whilst the rest are the X1's media player, the radio, a Google search page, a slideshow viewer, and a clock with some fish on it.

The panels are also quite sluggish, taking around five seconds to load. When selected, rather than being able to see what is actually going on with each program from the main grid, a static image illustrates each of them. Which means the sushi-filled clock always says '6.18,' whilst the SPB shell is on 10pm New York time until you select it, at which point it jarringly moves from low-resolution picture to high resolution loveliness.

What is the point of these panels when they aren't even an accurate representation of anything? This is a prototype handset, but I have been assured that the vast majority of features will not change for the retail version. Please, let this be one that will be addressed.

Phone call quality is fair, but the reception is flaky indoors. Browsing can be done using either a touch-driven version of Opera or Internet Explorer, and both look pretty amazing on the X1's WVGA resolution screen. The battery is a huge Li-Polymer 1500 mAh affair, which roughly translates to a Good One.

The problem is that charging it is SUCH a long process, that you will never make the mistake of letting it run too low again. It decided to stop some little functions like the ability to make and receive calls when the battery got low, which was an interesting choice of things to omit It took over 15 hours to charge the battery from dead to full, but the talk time when it back up and running was an impressive 10 hours.

The GPS functionality uses Google Maps, and is quick to pick up a satellite signal, even whilst indoors. However, we found it to often be a few hundred metres out on the triangulation

All in all, the X1 has all of the aesthetics boxes ticked, but it simply falls short in terms of ease of use. Only Windows Mobile aficionados will be able to make the phone really sing, and the redundant panels being the only way to access certain items is frustrating, which all makes navigation on the X1 far more long-winded than it needs to be.

That seems to be the overall issue with the X1. As nice as it is, there are just so many little incongruities and graphical glitches when loading programs, things which you simply do not expect from a flagship device. For all the great looks and features, it seems to be Sony-Ericsson's dalliance with Windows Mobile that spoils an otherwise fun and functional Xperiance with the X1but then how does the Samsung Omnia manage it?