We recently reported that the Argos eBay outlet store was selling the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 for £69.99 with £3.95 delivery. At the time, O2 still had the handset listed at £99.99 but, they have now reduced the price of the budget smartphone from Sony Ericsson.

You can now pick up the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 directly from O2 for £79.99. With O2 you get free delivery and a top up isn’t required like it is through third party retailers such as Carphone Warehouse. O2 are also offering a £20 gift voucher with the handset. There are five retailers you can choose from for the gift voucher, Next, Boots, Argos, Amazon or Pizza Hut.

This deal applies to the black model and the O2 exclusive white model of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 handset.

Normally the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 retails for around £100 on O2. However through the Argos outlet store on eBay you can pick up a brand new Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 for £69.99 with £3.99 delivery, making the handset only £73.98 compared to the £99.99 price tag the phone carries through O2 directly.

The Xperia X8 has always been Sony Ericsson’s budget Android phone but, despite that the X8 has come under heavy criticism from users, as have Sony Ericsson for not upgrading the Android version on the X8 past Android 2.1. However, as a starter Android phone it’s a bargain price and comes with a 3 inch display compared to the 2.55″ display found on the Xperia X10 Mini’s, Sony Ericsson’s mid range smartphones.

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The Sony Ericsson website has revealed a new handset that they company will be releasing. The handset is part of the Walkman range and is named the W8. The design of the W8 is identical to that of the Xperia X8, so it looks like Sony Ericsson have rebadged the handset, added the Walkman branding to it and named it the W8. The specs of the phone are also the same as the X8.

Like the X8 and X10 Mini, the W8 will have the four corner shortcut UI, as well as easy access to playlists. The W8 will also feature a 3 inch display, with a 3.2 megapixel camera, 168MB of RAM, a 600MHz processor and use Android as the operating system. Like the X8, the W8 appears to be running Android 2.1. Due to the nature of the handset, like the X8 the W8 may not see a higher version of Android but, as the handset is targetted at a different market this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The W8 will be available in three colors, including the original Walkman Orange, as well as Metallic Red and Azur. The phone is set to be released in China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Vietnam and Thailand before the end of Q2, which runs until June.

When Sony Ericsson announced that they would be releasing a successor to the Xperia X10 in the form of the Xperia Arc, they also announced around the same time, that there would be no further Android updates for the X10 range of handsets. As could be expected, this caused a lot of uproar as many customers bought their X10 in good faith that the handset would be supported for the length of their contract. This announcement came before the handset was even a year old, so even customers who bought the X10 as soon as it was launched were extremely disappointed with the company.

It’s no surprise to hear that Sony Ericsson got a lot of feedback from customers, some of which was over the top and offensive, while other feedback stated the benefits of upgrading the X10 to 2.2 or 2.3. Thankfully, Sony Ericsson have listened to this feedback and announced that the Xperia X10 will receive an Android update at the end of Q2/early Q3.

The update will take the X10 straight to Android 2.3.3, the highest version of Android currently available. The work that the company have done with 2.3 and their new range of handsets has essentially made 2.3 on the X10 possible. Although there are some consequences in doing so. Most of which however, many will happily live without and have not wanted from the start. In some cases such as Moxier, many users rooted their handset to remove this.

In the place of Moxier, the X10 will use the 2.3 native EAS functionality. Also Mediascape will be replaced by the music player and media experience widgets as found on the next range of Xperia handsets. What won’t be replaced by another app or feature however, is the backup and restore app – although there are many alternatives on the Android market. Smile detection and face recognition will also be removed, instead the X10 will use the standard camera interface of Android.

Unfortunately for X10 Mini, Mini Pro and X8 owners this doesn’t apply however and will remain on Android 2.1. Unless of course Sony Ericsson change their mind on that matter as well.

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Virgin Mobile have gained the exclusive rights to releasing the Xperia X8 in black and red within the UK. Despite the features of the handset not being top notch, it’s still a relatively good smart phone and is for the budget shopper. The X8 from Virgin Mobile is available for free on their £10 a month tariff, well £10.21 a month after UK VAT. For £10.21 a month, you get 50 minutes of calls, 250 texts and 500MB of web data. The contract length is 24 months, which if you don’t top your phone up frequently, may work out more expensive than buying the handset outright, however for those who do top up £10 or more a month, this is quite a good deal. A 2GB memory card is included in the box.

One of the downfalls to the Xperia X10 when it launched, apart from not having multi touch, is that the handset also came with an outdated OS upon release. When announced, Android 1.6 was fine but, by the time Sony Ericsson released the handset, Android 2.1 was out, with Android 2.2 coming soon. Or if you were in America, Android 2.2 was already out, while the X10 still shipped with Android 1.6. The OS has since been updated to Android 2.1 although many were hoping Sony Ericsson would skip 2.1 and head straight to Android 2.2, or at the very least update soon after to 2.2. Android 2.3 is out now though and there’s still no sign of Android 2.2 on the X10.

Sony Ericsson have confirmed that the Android 2.2 will not be making it’s way to their Xperia X10 range of devices, this includes the full size X10, as well as the X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro. The Xperia X8 will also remain on Android 2.1 and not see a further upgrade. While the handsets won’t receive any further Android updates, Sony Ericsson have said they will continue to release minor firmware upgrades to the handset, such as the multi touch upgrade which is on it’s way.

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Despite some regions, the US included, to not have received the Android 2.1 update for the Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson are rolling out the Android update to their Xperia X8 handsets. The roll out is being performed in pretty much the same manner as the X10, where it will be rolled out by regional kits. To start the updates off, Russia are one of the first countries are confirmed to have the updates.

Reports are also filing in that some Mid East countries have received the update, namely Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. The update has also reached India and Sweden. As before, unfortunately Sony Ericsson are unable to give any specific dates as to when a particular region, or network will receive the Android 2.1 update on the Xperia X8.

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We recently found out that the Xperia X8, which had only ever been captured in white, was also going to be available in black, like the Xperia X10 and X10 Mini. While there is still no official word from Sony Ericsson about the black Xperia X8, a video has shown up online showing off the Xperia X8 in it’s new black color.

The front of the black Xperia X8 is matte, while the back is finished in a glossy piano black. Check out the video of the Xperia X8 in black after the jump.
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While one report can’t be classed as a widespread issue, it is an issue none the less. Over at the SE-Blog, the admin of the site has acquired Sony’s latest Android device, the Xperia X8. Like the iPhone 4, which coined the expression “Antennagate”, the Xperia X8 seems to suffer from the same problem. When holding the phone and covering both sides of the phone, the signal will drop with the signal bars going down, until there are none. While it’s true that covering any phone would result in some signal drop, this doesn’t seem to happen on the X10 or X10 Mini.

Another issue with the handset is that the download speeds seem to be a lot slower. While using speedtest, the admin could get around 6 megabits over 3G on the X10, while the X8 struggles to reach 1 megabit. As this is the first report I’ve heard of this, it’s unclear whether this is a faulty Xperia X8, or a widespread issue. If it’s a widespread issue, we will most likely hear of more of these stories as consumers buy the handset. Has anyone else bought an Xperia X8 and have you had this issue? Let us know in the comments.