Sony Mobile Evangelist

As we know, Multi-touch is an enhancement to touchscreen technology, which provides the user with the ability to apply multiple finger gestures simultaneously onto the electronic visual display to send complex commands to the device. Hence, most new touchscreen device launches have been governed with avid discussions by fans whether the much needed feature is indeed available. The XPERIA X10 is no different.

While Sony Ericsson had confirmed that the X10 will get an Android upgrade,  it seems that even an upgrade will not provide the much-desired multi-touch on the X10. This is because the lack of multi-touch on the X10 is not only software related, but hardware related too, as confirmed by product manager Rikard Skogberg.This means that the X10 will never have multi-touch despite any Android version updates.


This information was later confirmed by Sony Ericsson Asia:

Yes, this is correct, as it relates to both software and hardware support from the phone. However, like he [Rikard Skogberg] mentioned, we will be working hard on other solutions, for instance, zooming, a feature which has been requested frequently. This will not compromise the user experience which focuses on our unique applications, such as Timescape and Mediascape.

I'd still say this is not a deal-breaker, as multitouch is mostly of help while using 1) the qwerty keyboard to tap out a message and 2) for zooming. While the latter can be a little less intuitive by using conventional options, Sony Ericsson is reportedly working on it, and I can assure you it's a pretty impressive solution. You can have a look at the zooming solution demoed here, it's pretty neat to say the least:

And as far as the former is concerned, there's always Swype ;)

So i'd say go ahead and grab your X10, multi-touch or not, it boasts of a stellar spec sheet and it's one of the best smartphones in the market at the moment.

Via: SE Product Blog and USEB