Click to View

One of the most surprising announcements at the Mobile World Congress this month was Sony Ericsson's, normally a Symbian stalwart, introduction of its first Windows Mobile model, the Xperia X1. We now know who's building the smartphone for Sony Ericsson and what version of Windows Mobile it’ll run.

If pictures of the Xperia X1 you've seem vaguely familiar, then you won't be surprised by reports today that the Windows Mobile-device experts over at HTC— the most successful original design manufacturer of Windows Mobile smartphones ever—are building the smartphone for Sony Ericsson.

It's also been discovered that the Xperia X1 will run on the as-of-yet unreleased 6.1 version of Windows Mobile, which is supposed to include a number of improvements over the current edition of Microsoft's smartphone operating system.

Since the Xperia X1 sports a touch screen—a 3-inch, 840 x 480-pixel (WVGA) resolution type—we also won't be surprised should Sony Ericsson ask HTC to graft a version of its iPhone-like TouchFLO interface onto Windows Mobile for the smartphone.

And since the Xperia X1 isn't due until the second half of the year, maybe it'll be the updated, more user-friendly version of TouchFLO we're expecting HTC to introduce during the first half of 2008.

In Touch with TouchFLO
HTC shipped over 2 million units of its Touch smartphone, which runs on Windows Mobile with TouchFLO, last year. Half the number of iPhone's moved by Apple, but an impressive number nonetheless.

Today, TouchFLO is capable of recognizing and responding to the sweep of a finger across a screen. It is even supposed to be intelligent enough to distinguish between finger and stylus input and then respond accordingly.

Sweep your fingers across the display to launch an animated, three-dimensional interface comprising three screens: Contacts, Media and Applications.

More on the Xperia X1
As with many other high-end Windows Mobile Professional devices today, many of which were built and designed by HTC by the way, you can slide the Xperia X1's display aside to reveal a full QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

As a quad-band GSM phone, you'll be able to use the smartphone to make voice calls in most world markets. It supports 3G cellular-wireless data networking in many countries as well.

There’s also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS for location-based services, FM receiver and 3.2 megapixel camera for picture and video.

A microSD slot is available to compliment the Xperia X1's 400MB of internal memory with gigabytes of additional storage.

The smartphone measures 4.3 x 2.1 x 0.66 inches (110 x 53 x 16.7 millimeters) and weighs in at 5.1 ounces (145 grams).

There’s still no word on how much the Xperia X1 will cost or if the smartphone will become available directly from a wireless carrier. Sony Ericsson has a page devoted to the X1 here.