I had a feeling that Sony Ericsson's gorgeous, Windows Mobile-powered Xperia X1—soon to be available in the U.S., minus a carrier—would be pricey, but $800? Whoa.

The X1 (set to go on sale Nov. 28 on the Sony Style Web site, with pre-orders starting this Thursday) has been bouncing around for nearly a year now—indeed, word surfaced about the "arc-slider" smartphone back in February, and I got my first hands-on look during April's CTIA Wireless conference in Vegas.

CNET has a full review of the finished, HSDPA- and Wi-Fi-equipped X1 (the version I saw was only running alpha software), and reviewer Bonnie Cha comes away impressed—well, initially, at least—with the customizable, multi-paneled main interface, as well as the "wow factor" of the brushed-metal shell and WVGA, three-inch display.

But besides dinging the "pokey" Web browsing and occasionally sluggish performance, Cha writes that she "can't imagine" spending $800 for a smartphone—and frankly, I couldn't agree more.

You can check out Cha's complete review right here, along with my initial hands-on impressions from back in April—which is probably as close as I'm ever gonna get to an $800 handset like this one. Of course, there's always the possibility that a carrier (such as AT&T, given that the X1 supports AT&T's HSDPA frequencies) could pick up the handset and offer a (hopefully massive) subsidy. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Update: Our own Chris Null just posted his own review.

Related:
Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 review [CNET]