14 DAY TRIAL // Japanese-Swedish mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson has pushed its first handset powered by Google's Android OS, the X10, to the market only recently and now we learn that some disturbing news emerged for enthusiasts. The device does not come with multi-touch features, something that is reportedly connected both to the software and to the hardware it includes, and it seems that future updates might not bring this on the table either, but that the company is working on offering other solutions to users.
“I don’t have any technical details around the screen to share, sorry! – However I have now gotten confirmation on the question of multi touch. As said earlier there’s no multitouch in X10 – and I also can confirm that it’s not only related to SW but also to HW. Despite this, for future updates of X10 we are of course working on other solutions for e.g. zooming, which has been requested frequently on this blog, such has the solution demoed on X10 mini at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc3f3twWgzo and similar,” Rikard Skogberg, Sony Ericsson product manager states in a recent blog post.
Unfortunately, no specific details on why the Sony Ericsson X10 does not support multi-touch are offered, and even if future software updates might bring the functionality along, the lack of hardware capabilities for that will make it useless. Of course, one can easily live without multi-touch, but considering that other devices come with the feature and that users are attracted by it a lot, Sony Ericsson's Android phone will certainly seem less appealing than before.
When unveiled officially late last year, the Sony Ericsson X10 seemed as one of the most appealing Android phones to arrive on the market, that's for sure, especially with that UX its maker has thrown into the mix. However, the handset is powered by the Android 1.6 version of the OS (which will be upgraded to newer flavors in the near future, the handset vendor announced) and won't sport multi-touch either, while other mobile phones do, making users think twice before going for an X10.