At the end of March, Sony Ericsson (SE) announced that it will be upgrading the Xperia X10 smartphone to Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread).

Now the phone maker has showed off some of the functionality (video posted below) that X10 owners can expect to employ, once the update becomes available later this year. SE plans to start the roll-out of the update as of August 2011.

According to the company this update will “first and foremost be made available to generic trade kits. Even if there will be some operator kits getting this upgrade, as said before – some of you will not be able to upgrade your customized version of Xperia X10.”

The company added that there will be some changes to the info it posted in the original announcement concerning this update.

Features included in the update

SE originally stated users will lose the custom camera user interface (UI) due to the update and will have to make use of the standard Android camera UI. Due to the feedback of X10 users, its developers have now managed to retain the original camera UI for the Gingerbread version of the X10 software.

SE’s new Facebook inside Xperia functionality, introduced in the 2011 Xperia product line-up such as the newly announced Xperia mini and mini pro, will also be brought to the Xperia X10.

The Xperia X10 will also utilise a new UI layout and pinch-to-overview mode similar to that of the UI of the Xperia arc. Mediascape will also be replaced by the new media experience widgets and music player used within the new 2011 products. All the features of Gingerbread including Wi-Fi & USB tethering and app storage on the microSD card will also be part and partial of the update.

No Gingerbread update for the Xperia X10 mini, mini pro & X8

SE reiterated that this update is only destined for the Xperia X10 and not the current Xperia X10 mini, mini pro and X8. It did however state the reasons why users of those devices will have to keep on using Android 2.1 (Éclair).

The company said that the two main reasons for this move is because the Xperia X10 mini, X10 mini pro and X8 (168 MB) all have a lot less RAM than the Xperia X10 (384 MB). Based on the latter SE can’t guarantee a good user experience by upgrading those devices’ software beyond Android 2.1.

The other reason is that the upgrade of the Xperia X10’s software was made possible, due to the fact that SE had a code base (that it developed for the new 2011 Gingerbread-operating portfolio) which it could (for the most part) simply reuse for the X10. It stated that the Xperia X10 mini’s though, employ a different UI, meaning that it couldn’t just reuse its code.

SE also recently unveiled two new devices, the Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman and the Sony Ericsson txt pro, with the latter aimed at social network junkies and the former targeting music fans.