Sony Ericsson Japan have officially announced that the much awaited pinch and zoom update for the Xperia X10 will be released from tomorrow, January 19th. It will be available through PC companion from tomorrow and as an over the air (OTA) update from January 20th. Unfortunately, these dates are only for Japan so other regions will have to wait for more information. However with the update about to be released, it can only be a matter of time before the update reaches other regions.

Do you want to get a free Xperia X10? Now is your chance to do so by joining the Xperia X10 contest over at the Facebook page of Sony Ericsson.  Joining the contest is easy by following these simple steps.

1. Login to your Facebook account
2. Like the Official Sony Ericsson Facebook Page
3. Click on the “Win Xperia” Tab
4. Answer the simple question ( you can Google the answer)
5. Enter your contact details

Whilst many are extremely upset with Sony Ericsson with regards to them announcing that they will not be releasing any more Android updates for the Xperia X10 range and X8, those in America on AT&T are still stuck with 1.6, as the Android 2.1 update has not been approved by AT&T yet. It’s now been leaked that AT&T have an end of life date for the Xperia X10, which is penned in as March 6th. For those who did picked the handset up, this will come as another blow as it’s quite possible that AT&T will stop approving any minor updates Sony Ericsson release for the X10, although this is just speculation. If that is the case though, hopefully AT&T will manage to release the Android Eclair update to their Xperia X10 owning customers.

Despite all the uproar about Sony Ericsson’s flagship Xperia handset having an outdated OS when it launched with Android 1.6 and when the company released Android 2.1, when 2.3 was just around the corner, the company have announced that they will not update the Xperia X10, X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro, or Xperia X8 past Android 2.1. Sony Ericsson have already come under fire for the delay of Android 2.1 on the handset and several petitions were started online asking Sony Ericsson to skip Android 2.1 and go straight to 2.2. This wasn’t to happen though, as 2.2 aka Froyo, will not be making it’s way to the Xperia X10 range of handsets. For the US particularly, this has given the handset a minimal lifespan, consisting of less than 6 months. Unfortunately, Sony Ericsson don’t see it this way. They have promised further minor updates to the handset, such as the multi touch update, coming sometime this quarter but, the Android version will not be going any higher.

The Xperia X10 added yet another distinction to its increasing popularity by being one of the most sold phones for the 2010 holiday season. The report which came from Wirefly, the U.S. leading cell phone online store, showed that Android phones led in holiday shopping sales with the X10 becoming the 6^th most sold model. It is apparent from the report that more people are now confident in choosing the Android platform over the rival iPhone.