At the Thailand 2011 mobile expo, Sony showed the trusty Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 running what looks to be Gingerbread version of Android. Unlike the newest Xperia like Arc, Neo or Play, the X10 did not launch with the latest versions of Android at the time. It took a long time for the company to upgrade from the original 1.6 version to the 2.1. In addition, Sony Ericsson, has flip flopped a few times about the future of the device. recently however, they have committed to upgrading it to Android 2.3 by second or third quarter of 2011. This comes as a relief to many X10 owners as many manufacturers have indicated that many phones of the X10′s generation are approaching their end of life. The video shows the X10 running Gingerbread with no problems. It looks if the promised speed boost from the newest Kernel does indeed speed up the device to a similar level to that of the Xperia Arc.
Also interesting for those who can speak Thai are the hints of the forthcoming custom bootloader for the Xperia phones. The phone giant had indicated that they were reconsidering their position of locking out custom ROMs. It looks that the development of the feature is also progressing nicely, though the speaker does not say when the feature would be available. It looks like the Xperia X10 may be one of the phones to get this option. Once in place, an unlocked bootloader would allow developers to build as many custom ROMs for the Xperia line as they want. For most of us, that means that we would no longer be dependent on Sony Ericsson to provide upgrades for the newest versions of Android. As SE has previously been hit or miss when rolling out upgrades for their phones, an alternative source of ROMS would be a relief to most Xperia owners. Check out the video if the Sony Ericsson X10 running Gingerbread below.
