There is no official X1 6.5 rom and it’s not in the X1’s product roadmap. There are hackers out there who can do pretty much anything, but unless you’re getting it from the SE update service it isn’t an official Sony Ericsson product.

Written by a self confessed phone specification geek Lars, the site aims to provide fellow mobile fans with enough information to fulfil their mobile needs. He comments:

“When I use a good cell-phone (especially if it’s fairly new and there’s lots left to discover), it is like stepping into another world.”

To be honest at times the site can be difficult to understand if you are not a true phone fanatic but there are some real gems for getting some performance out of your handset.

Here are my top five of his tips:

1. Tweaks For Optimised Performance

Suggestions that can increase the performance of your phone such as: increasing the speed of your handset

2. How to Speed Up Your Memory Card

Details how to ensure that Windows Mobile is registered to your memory card thus increasing speed

3. Increasing Your Touchscreen’s Responsiveness

Instructions on how to ensure that your screen is as responsive as possible

4. Changing the Font Size of Java Applications (JBed)

Make your applications easier to read and use by following the instructions

5. Making the Pop-Up Menus More Finger-Friendly

Instructions on how to do this by simply enlarging the pop-up menus

It is designed to set highest standard for your applications and allows you to use the “Certified for Xperia X1″ logo in your marketing materials.

As a part of the program, Xperia Panel Certification is the process of certifying that your Xperia Panel has passed performance and quality assurance tests, fulfilling the requirements according to Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Panels certification requirements.

Completing this new Certification Program and having your Panel certified allows you to participate in any Sony Ericsson promotional activity and to use the “Certified for Xperia X1″ logo in your marketing materials, amongst other.

For more information visit Xperia Certification Program page.

Vildan

The first paid Xperia Panels are now available to download from the fun and downloads section of the Sony Ericsson website.

The new weather and traveller panels are both produced by SPB software, the same company which produced the free SPB shell.

I would spend the next few paragraph explaining what they do but the guys over at pocketnow.com have beaten me to it with a video review. We posted about the traveller panel when it won the panels category in the 2008 content awards.

The two panels cost $29.95 (for traveller) and $19.95 (for weather.)

The guys over at pocketnow.com have posted a review of the beta versions of the 4 new panels (announced back in feb at MWC.) Not sure they installed 100% properly as the Skype one certainly did more on my X1 when I was testing it. I know a few other bloggers have beta versions for feedback so I’ll update this if / when they post anything.

Also, I noted (thanks to the Xperiancer blog) that there are a couple of new 3rd party panels knocking about.

Wakoopa is a software focussed social network. The panel was built by a guy who goes by the name of Chopinfreak over at XDA developers. I’ve not yet installed it but will up date with my thoughts when I have.

The other panel is really quite cool, it’s similar in some ways to the goldfish panel that ships with the phone but is more interactive and has more functionality. It’s called “Growing” and seems to use some kind of flash. The instructions to install it are a little complicated (well, you need to install 2 cabs) and links to them both can be found here.

If anyone stumbles across any more panels leave a link in the comments and I’ll update this.

The new evernote panel (we talked about it back when we announced the content awards winners) is now available to download for free from the Sony Ericsson website. Check out the video above to see how it (Evernote, not the panel) works. There are a few new panels going live in the coming weeks and we’ll be posting reviews of them here.

If there’s anything in particular you want to know about the panels please leave questions in the comments and I’ll get some answers from the developers.

The new beta includes Open GL ES support and allows you to access the internal hardware graphics acceleration on the X1.

If you’re a developer with any questions drop me an email and I’ll put you in touch with the right people at Sony Ericsson.

Skype: See at a glance which of your contacts are online, easily call or instant message them in “just a couple of clicks,” and as far as I can tell from the pre-release material, there’ll also be some kind of graphical customisation using evening, daylight, or event based effects.

CNN: Live news sport and weather direct to your phone and access to i-report (CNN’s citizen journalism tool.) You can browse news by category, tell it what you’re interested in and get it to send you local news based on your phone’s location

On the road: a driving panel. gives you big touch buttons and simplifies call handling / media streaming / GPS tools.

Mytopia: Gives you access to the online bingo and poker games on mytopia.com

These will all be made available for download as well as all the shortlisted entries to the content awards.

I’ll update this as soon as I have more information, pics etc…

Sam

UPDATE: image courtesy of omio – also worth checking out there is a video of the CNN panel in action

Sony Ericsson announced the winners of their content awards for 2008 this morning. You can see all the other winners on the content awards site but the prize for the best new Xperia panel went to SPB software for the SPB traveler panel.

The panel uses the internet connection and the GPS on the X1 to provide you with a number of useful travelling tools including a currency convertor, flight search, multi time zone diary and a phrasebook. For more information check out SPB’s website.

Update:

The nominees were:

Evernote

Ping.fm

Mobisystems (English to Japanese dictionary)

PlusFourSix (for their work on 3 sweden’s operator panel)