Tag along as Editor-in-Chief Jørgen Sundgot sets out on a perilous treasure hunt for Sendo's first - or is it second - smartphone, marked X.
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It's been a long journey for Sendo's first smartphone to actually to come to market, but given the much-publicized cancellation of a product that was to be based on Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 platform and subsequent switch to Nokia's Series 60 platform, one could hardly expect anything else. What matters is that it's here now - and with it, there's another smartphone contender in town. Can it stand up to offerings from larger vendors?
 | The compact exterior of the Sendo X holds a broad feature set
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Design
Although not as sleek-looking as the recently released Nokia 7610 (also based on Series 60), the Sendo X is certainly no dud in the design department. At 11 x 4.9 x 2.3 cm and 120 g, it's roughly comparable in volume to the Nokia 7610, as well as its predecessor, the Nokia 6600, but has a slightly 'tougher' look to it - sacrificing slenderness for a thicker form factor which is both narrower and a tad shorter than most Series 60 smartphones.
Offering up a good first impression, the X has a standard-variety keypad which offers excellent tactile feedback and a very pleasing white backlight. Unfortunately, some small snags appear after some time of use, such as keys being hard to press, making high-speed texting mildly strenuous. The five-way navigational pad placed just above the keypad also offers excellent feedback, but is placed too close to its flanking send and receive buttons, making it prone to accidental presses.
Pausing for a moment to touch on what's just above the aforementioned soft buttons, we find a crisp and clear 16-bit display complete with adjustable brightness. Usable from the medium setting and upwards, it is no match for Nokia smartphones with regard to brightness level, but it is certainly on par with the Siemens SX1 - and likely contributes to the long battery life of the X.
Returning to buttons, Sendo chose to place the Edit button on the left side of the X, just below the 2.5 mm handsfree kit jack complete with an annoyingly fiddly rubber insert. Incidentally, this is also where the sufficiently comfortable set of bundled handsfree kit slash stereo earphones plugs in. Above these, we find a large infrared port, and a quick gander at the right side of the handset reveals the Voice button which activates both voice dialing and voice commands.
Lastly, the top of the X harbours a power on/off button, while removing the battery lid from the back reveals the SD/MMC Card expansion slot at the bottom of the phone. Also, the back of the handset is where we find its integrated 0.3 Megapixel camera, complete with a vanity mirror and photo light.
Connectivity
Besting Nokia, as well as any other product from Series 60 licensees to date, Sendo has included an SD/MMC Card expansion slot in the X. Although not capable of SDIO support to enable input/output accessories to be used with the X, it does at the very least broaden users' options with regard to memory expansion, for which Sendo deserves credit. Furthermore, cards are hot-swappable - but only to the extent that they have to be manually stopped prior to removal.
For input/output accessory purposes, the X sports a bottom connector that will let owners synchronize the smartphone via the included USB cable, and to which a foldable keyboard accessory will also connect. As with other Series 60 phones, synchronization is also possible via Bluetooth, for which the Sendo X offers good support and all of the most frequently used profiles - although its transmission range could be better.
Most important of all for any phone, however, is of course WAN connectivity. The Sendo X offers tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz coupled with GPRS Class 8, which should be sufficient for most international travellers. Signal reception is outstanding, and with support for HSCSD as well as Fax Modem capabilities the X is a good all-rounder, complete with excellent overall audio quality.
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