Try to contain your excitement, here: Sony-Ericsson will begin rolling out an the update to Android 2.1 (Éclair) for the Xperia X10, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro devices starting November 1. As sarcastic as we are about being updated to an already out-of-date version, it's still a huge step up from the current Android 1.6. Major features of the updates:

Xperia X10:
• HD video recording with continuous auto-focus for high quality videos
• Upgrade of the Android platform to Android 2.1
• New back up and restore application, with extended content back up
• 5 homescreens for apps, widgets, shortcuts and folders
• Social phonebook which automatically syncs contact pictures from Facebook and shows when your friends are online

Xperia X10 mini and X10 mini pro:
• Improved Bluetooth functionality with support for sending and receiving pictures, contacts and more
• New backup and restore application with extended content back up
• Automatic synchronization of your contact pictures between Facebook and your phone book
• Improved ways of handling pictures, audio, text and numbers in your messages
• Upgrade of the Android platform to Android platform 2.1

Android 2.1 brings a slew of benefits on its own, so their "Upgrade of the Android platform to Android 2.1" entails an awful lot of changes on its own.

The roll-out will begin in the Nordic countries (why do updates always seem to start there?), followed by other European nations. No word on any specific timeframe or country schedule, but these things usually take a fair bit of time and this is a rather major update. Unfortunately, the update requires SE's PC Companion software.

While it's nice that the update is coming, it's still fairly depressing that it took a whopping 9.5 months to prep the update for release  - and by now, Android 2.2 (Froyo) has been floating around for a few months. At that rate, we should be seeing the Froyo update about the time Honeycomb rumors heat up.

[Source: Sony Ericsson via Android Community]