FIRST announced in February, Sony Ericsson’s new Xperia X1 has been generating considerable buzz on the Net and around geek tables at the coffee shops, and speculation and anticipation have reached near fever-pitch levels that even Apple acolytes have been discussing the Sony Ericsson phone.

Well, it’s finally here. Officially released in the Philippines just a couple of days ago, we’re happy to report we got our hands on an X1 a month ago and have been able to put it through its paces to see if the hype was warranted.

The Reader’s Digest Condensed Answer: Yes.

Smarts

Simply put, it’s a beautiful little thing, and it’s got the pedigree and the smarts to go with it. Rare indeed in the cell phone world.

Think Angelina Jolie with the brain of Albert Einstein, but Angelina is a cell phone, and her name is really Xperia X1.

The adjective ‘little’ is misleading. For what it really is, and for what it can do, you’d expect it to be a heavy, big-ass gadget, like maybe a small laptop. The surprising thing is that it is actually smaller and lighter than some less inspired phones.

You’d never guess the X1 was stuffed with so much hardware and software goodies. The only clue might be that it was slightly thicker than most new phones. (That’s because it’s hiding a sexy, curved, slide-out QWERTY keyboard in there; we’ll get to that in a bit.)

You get the X1 (which comes in silver or black), the USB charger and cable (a departure from norm for Sony Ericsson; the X1 connects to the physical world through a MiniUSB port), a great-sounding hands-free headset (that uses a conventional 3.5mm baby stereo jack), a high-capacity 2GB microSD card, a software CD and documentation.

Inside the phone you get a 3.2 megapixel camera, a long-lived 1500mAH battery, and all the software you’d want—including Opera, Microsoft Office Mobile Suite and Microsoft Direct Push Technology.

That’s because the Xperia X1 uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as the operating system, the first Sony Ericsson phone to do so.

Irresistible

It’s easy to get lost in the X1’s rich feature set and forget its raison d’etre: it’s a phone—a duty it performs exceedingly well. Calls are clear, stable. The battery life is good, even with high-performance features turned on; you can go a couple of days without charging.

But the stuff under the hood is irresistible. It’s nearly an embarrassment of riches. The X1 does nearly everything: it’s a camera, an Internet device, a multimedia player, a PDA.

We don’t really need to run down the list of connectivity options; if it exists, it’s probably in there. Notably, the X1 is 3.5G capable, and can it can do Internet tricks with aplomb, and is ready to run even at HSPA speed (a blazing-fast upload-download protocol that would be great if we had it here).

The dominant feature of the X1 is the big, bold, bright screen that takes up almost the whole face of the X1. If you’re a specs person, here are the numbers: 3”, 65,546 colors at 800 x 640 pixels. All that means is it’s a big, bright, gorgeous screen that doesn’t wash out even in the outdoors.

The menus and graphics are rich, crisp and clear, to the point that this reviewer had to biggify (yes, that’s a word now) the fonts so he could read the fine text. And wait till you watch a movie on this thing!

And did we say it’s also a full-functioning touchscreen?

Ergonomic

You can enter data any number of ways: using an increasingly quaint stylus (like the old PDAs), through the D-Pad or 4-way key (like your PSP), through an optical joystick (think tiny trackpad), with your finger on the touchscreen (think iPhone), or through the X1’s excellently designed arc-slider QWERTY keyboard.

Most of us liked the Nokia Communicators because of the keyboard that made it work a bit like a laptop when you cracked them open. The X1’s 4-row keyboard slides out to the right (the big, gorgeous screen reorients itself accordingly), and typing is fast, convenient and effortless.

The keys are raised, satisfyingly tactile and backlit, and they are are well spaced so that your fingers don’t get in each other’s way when you text.

But the nicest thing about it is that arc-sliding part. Simply put, the keyboard slides out in an arc. It’s curved and ergonomically designed so that it’s easier to use, and angles the screen so that it faces you squarely as you type. Cool.

One of the great innovations of the X1 is the ability to put on different faces, to change the whole look of the phone depending on your personality or your mood that day.

The X1 can keep you up nights with its insanely extensive customization options, but the Customizable Panel Interface is the most fun.

You can choose from 7 built-in panels ranging from the usual Microsoft Today screen or two Xperia versions, or you can use simple ones that make the X1 look like a radio player, an Internet device, or one that just shows the time and some fish swimming lazily around the screen.

These fish act as message indicators as well, changing color depending on the info. They even follow your finger around the touchscreen.

If you get tired of these, you can download a lot more panels from the Xperia website.

Baggage

There are a few niggles, though. Running on the Windows Mobile platform, we get all the baggage that comes with it: some lag, occasional freezes and hangs. But nothing we’re not used to.

Another is the controversial cost. In the US, users bewail the tag price, which is high ($800) because the phone is open and unsubsidized by telcos.

But the X1 is a high-end luxury device, a status symbol; the difference is you get what you pay for, which in this case is a lot.

A big complaint about the X1 is that it’s not an iPhone. We don’t know about that; it’s comparing Apples to oranges, really. The Xperia X1, feature for feature, certainly does a heck of a lot more than an iPhone, and for other people, that’s enough.

In fact, their big complaint about the iPhone is that it’s not an X1. Right back at you!