Over at the Unofficial Sony Ericsson blog, Michell has tried out the YouTube panel for Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1. A mini guide on how to use it and what’s needed has been provided.

Not only is the YouTube panel required but also the YouTube application which was originally made for HTC’s Touch HD. The application needs to be installed first, followed by the panel. There have been instances of the panel not working and so the installation file needs to be run. The process also isn’t as simple on non English X1s, but there is a solution available which you can view here.

Once the panel is activated, it will load the YouTube application, which presents you with 25 popular videos, displayed as a list with a thumbnail and link to the video. Scrolling of the list can be operated by using the touch screen and more popular videos can be shown by expanding the list. What videos are shown when you load it up can be changed via a setting. The application has four buttons located at the bottom allowing access to your watched videos history, bookmarked videos, search and an overview of the video list presented when launched. Another button is located at the top of the screen, giving you a program guide, which lets you keep track of your subscribed channels. While watching videos you can bring up an onscreen player menu, allowing you to rewind, fast forward, stop, etc, by tapping the screen.

Michell states that he uses the YouTube panel on his Xperia X1 quite a lot and is quite impressed with it. It’s described as being easy to use, with the ability to change the video quality and makes best use out of the screen resolution of the X1. One downside however is that it can use quite a lot of data so it’s recommended for use on contracts with unlimited data usage or while connected to a WLAN network.