After some rumors saying that Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 will not be released this year, as initially announced, a SE official declared the handset will actually be available in the second half of 2008, as promised.

While no one can say when exactly will Xperia X1 be officially launched, various mobile phone retailers are already offering it, on pre-order. MobileCityOnline, for example, offers Xperia X1 for $999. On Smart Mobile Gadgets the phone comes for 20 bucks less, meaning $979. Clove, a UK retailer offers Xperia X1 for 395 GBP ($796), while CellHUT sells the handset for only $699, which seems to be closer to the phone's real retail price.

Of course, pre-ordering Xperia X1 right now only means you'll get it when available, which can even be somewhere towards the end of the year. Nevertheless, the device's availability on pre-order is a good sign that should make all those who are waiting it hope for an approaching release.

We noticed that on Smart Mobile Gadgets there's a note saying that Xperia X1 is compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile, Rogers and Fido, but it is not (with emphasis on not) compatible with Verizon, Sprint, Telus and Bell. What will the subscribers from the latter carriers do then, if they want to get the Xperia X1 (and I'm sure many of them do want the handset)? They'll probably switch to a compatible network or make a second contract agreement, just for the sake of Xperia. Which is not a weird thing to do, considering all the features the phone has to offer.

Xperia X1 comes with an arc-sliding design, it measures 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm (when closed) and weighs 145 grams. It definitely won't be among the slimmest lightweight mobile devices of the year, but it will surely be among the most powerful ones. The handset runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 and packs a splendid 3 inch TFT touchscreen with a 800 x 480 pixels resolution, a full sliding QWERTY keyboard, advanced multimedia and Internet features, HSDPA, GPS, Wi-Fi, a 3.15 Megapixel camera (with flash, auto focus and video) and much more. Enough to get mobile users excited and waiting for an official release of the phone.