Here's my take.

Let me first say, i have been running the update for over two weeks. I waited to write a review to make sure it was not just my excitment of the updare and a true review of performance and everyday use.

I would also like to give you a little background on what i use the phone for and how this may have impacted my review.

I work in construction and use my phone primarily as a tool to keep me conected to my digital life. Like this web page, email (i have several), google maps and of course the phone.

I generally get about 20 calls a day and the average call is about 5 to 10 minutes. I like to text and because my wife is from asia (i lived there for 4 years) we tend to text rather than call so my text messages can range from 0 to 25, this mainly depends on what is happenning with our kids. I travel alot during the day, so I really like and use the google navigation in android (at least once a day sometimes 3 or 4 times). I use gmail as well as maildroid, both are setup to push mail to my phone. I can easily get 50 emails a day and some times over 100. last but not least just the basic use of other apps I might need during the day (like a bubble level or flash light).

Battery

I have started with my review of the battery as this is what has impacted me the most. While the phone was running android 1.6 (donut). I never made it through a full day at work not even once. This could have been the result of a rogue app not closing and running when the phone was asleep or just the lack of power mangement of 1.6 (donut). I had always used a task killer app, this did little to improve the battery.

here is the good news for my X10 running 2.1. My battery has yet to die before I get home. I no longer use any kind of task killer app. I most likely use my phone more now as i no longer have a fear of my phone dying. if the battery was the only imporovement for 2.1 that alone would have made it well worth the hasle of updating (not really a hassle but none the less a hassle).

Screen

Ok the screen was the first thing I noticed as soon as the update was finninshed. WOW was it much sharper. the screen looking way better is just like adding a cherry to a bowl of ice cream it's nice but not a deal breaker for me. So I'll leave it at weait and see for yourself. Trust me you will notice.

Speed and Performance

While the X10 was running 1.6, I was very shocked at how slow the phone was knowing it hasd a 1ghz snapdragon processor. it just seemed to lag, scrolling through the apps list could be fustrating at times as it might or might not scroll after i flicked the screen. I also found it slow to open apps at times, again this is something I noticed right from day one.

So now I have Android 2.1 and well yes my X10 is much faster, I can open the app drawer and flick through the apps with no lag or hesitation (nothing is perfect so maybe a lag here or there but nothing like 1.6). Apps open much faster as a rule and general speed of the phone is all around faster.

Network / Reception

Ok this was a pleasent surprise as without the update i would have never known it could have been better. First I live in canada and my office is in my basement. if you are unfamiliar with how a basement can interfere with signal strength let me be the first to say it always causes a drop in signal. Now while I was running 1.6 I would be happy with one bar and mostly went with no bars while I was in the basement.

After the update I can now say i never get less than one bar and for the most part have 2 to 3. Ok for the most part 90% I have 2 but on ocassion I do get that third bard showing. So between the battery and reception this is nothing but good news.

Apps

Ok here's another part of the update that you may not even know could make a big difference. Kind of like if you can't see how would you know it exsist!

Well after the update you alos get a behind the seen update to the android market place, there are quite a few apps that are not evn compatible for 1.6. Looking back now it makes sense, if I we're to make an application I would look to market share and put my efforts to we're I can the most bang for my buck. If 40% of phones run 2.1, 30% run 2.2 and the last 30% we're running 1.6. It woulf make sense to make sure it works with 2.2 and 2.1 respectivley (my percentages are for example only and have no corolation to real world values).

The down side to this would be owning an Andrpoid devcie where the hardware manufacturer has stopped updating Android to support there older phones. As Android is still new (as in 3 three years), this is something we will not really notice for a few more years. I would encourage all hadrware manufactures to run a vanilla version of Android and use apps to customize the phone. You can have every app preinstalled and locked so they can not be uninstalled. This would give you the ability to update your older hardware in a more speedy manor and only have to worry about updating your apps, or just not lock down the bootloader.

Conclusion

I pretty much know that updating your X10 is not really a choice and will be done without much thought or hesitation. So I have really wrote this to just describle what I have noticed. If you are one of the few who have not updated yet or are still not sure if you should feel free to leave a comment below and I will be happy to answer any questions or comments below.