Sony Ericsson has in its Product Blog revealed that it has begun shipping its Xperia X8 Android smartphone to stores around the world. It has also started shipping the Cedar, a Green Heart branded, Eco-friendly phone from the company.
Coming back to the Xperia X8, The device was first announced a few months ago. Dimensionally smaller than the X10, the phone is targeted at users who wanted an Android device that is larger than the Xperia 10 Mini or Mini PRO but not as big as the X10.
The X8 comes with a fixed focus 3.2MP camera , a 3 inch display and sports a resolution of 320*480 pixels. The phone supports 3G and WiFi connectivity as well as GPS.
Sony Ericsson has sadly decided to launch the phone with Android 1.6. This, when most other manufacturers have started implementing Android 2.2 is outright criminal. The blog post adds that the update to Android 2.1 (not 2.2!) would appear after the X10 family gets the update. The phone is expected to cost less than $300 when launched.
As for the Cedar, it happens to be Sony’s latest addition to the Green Heart family of phones. A feature phone, the Cedar is a social networking friendly phone with out of the box support for Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. It also supports Exchange Active Sync for corporate email, calendar and contact access etc. (We wonder why Sony Ericsson has put that in a feature phone!)
Anyway, no word as to when to expect an India launch. That said, you would have to be tremendously crazy Sony Ericsson fan to buy this phone in its current state.
[Via Sony Ericsson Product Blog]
