Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Full Review and Full Details

Presenting a Review of the World’s smallest Android Phone the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini.

Intro

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Series began in February 2008 with the announcement of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. The XPERIA X1 was launched as the successor to the Sony Ericsson P1i which was pre-ceeded by smart-phones such as the P990i, P910i, P900 and P800.

So naturally the XPERIA line was considered to be a Business/Entrepreneurial range of phones. The second announcement was the XPERIA X2 which is the successor to the X1 and truly follows the Business line.

Design and Build Quality

The most striking aspect of the X10 Mini is definitely its design and size. You will not believe how tiny the device is till you see one and hold it. The phone is unbelievably small and can be mistaken for a toy phone.

The phone measures at 83x50x16mm which means it’s very small but a tad bit thick for today’s standards. But the thickness is expected because they have to cram all the features in such a small body. The weight of the phone is 88 grams which is very little. You can put it in your pocket and forget that it’s there. Believe us because we had experience!

The phone is mostly plastic but that does not compromise the build quality. Since the phone is a mono-block and has no moving portions, it is very well built. It feels solid and there are no creaks. But it does feel a bit toyish because of the lightness. The phone feels good in the hand however we think metal would have been splendid.

Screen

The X10 Mini houses a 2.55” Capacitive touchscreen with 240*320 (QVGA) resolution. While it may not sound like much, the resolution is perfectly fine for a screen of that size.

The screen may seem small especially to people who have gotten used to big touchscreens. Using the touchscreen is not a problem because Sony Ericsson have modified the interface to make maximum utilisation of available space. They call it the Four Corner UI. Navigating through the phone is not a problem and the capacitive screen makes it easier.

Keys and Controls

The keys and controls on the X10 Mini are minimal with it being a full-touchscreen phone. There are three buttons below the display. From the left to the right-Menu key, Home key and Back key. These keys are well placed and have good feedback. The right side of the X10 Mini has the volume up/down rocker key and the camera shutter button. They too have good feedback.

Operating System and User Interface

The Sony Ericsson X10 Mini runs on the Android 1.6 OS which is quite out-dated now. But Sony Ericsson has promised upgrades to version 2.1 by the end of 2010. Same is the case with the X10 and X10 Mini Pro models.

The 1.6 restricts the colour compatibility to 65k colours and many applications aren’t supported.

Sony Ericsson has optimised the interface to fit the smaller screen and making it more user friendly. They have also included the Timescape UI.

There are no lags or so in the interface or while browsing through pictures etc thanks to the 600 MHz processor.

Connectivity and Memory

Connectivity has not been compromised by the size. The X10 Mini comes with GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and micro-USB 2.0.

There is an internal memory of 128MB which is expandable using micro-SD cards of upto 16GB. 2GB micro-SD card comes bundled in the package.

Music

The music player is pretty neat and good to look at but lacks in features. There are no equalizers or skins. The music player is pretty easy to use though. By default there are three playlists-newly added, most played and never played.

The 3.5mm audio jack enables you to use your own headphones which have a 3.5mm jack. This means you don’t have to carry around an adaptor with you. The sound quality and loudness through the headphones is very good. The loudness isn’t as great through the speakers but the clarity remains

Video

As you guessed, videos are almost useless on the small screen especially with the shortcomings of the video player. The 2.55” screen means watching long videos will strain your eyes and give you headaches. It plays videos fine and browsing through the videos are quite easy too.

But the number of formats supported is very limited. Popular formats such as DivX or XviD aren’t recognized. 3GP and MP4 files are the only kinds supported.
Camera

This is one of the aspects of the X10 Mini that surprised us. It’s camera manages to produce good pictures. The X10 Mini comes with a 5 Megapixel camera with LED flash which takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592*1396 pixels. The pictures taken have good quality, colour reproduction and less noise.

The camera interface is quite basic offering four modes of shooting- auto, macro, twilight and sports. You can turn the flash on/off and also switch between still and video modes.

The flash is useless for low light photography but maybe used for Macro pictures etc. The videos recorded max out at VGA resolution (640*480) at 30 fps. Video light can be enabled as well. Video quality fails to impress as much as images as they are recorded in 3GP format and are compressed thus limiting the performance.

Battery Life

The X10 Mini has a battery with a tiny 950 mAh capacity. The standby times of 285 hours for 2G and 360 hours for 3G seemed quite real. We got reasonable battery life from the device. It might be due to the fact that it powers a very small screen. Talk-times quoted by company say 4 hours under 2G and 3 hours 30 minutes under 3G.

Conclusion

The X10 mini is the world’s smallest Android phone and it gets full marks for the design. The UI has been optimized for the small screen pretty well. Sony Ericsson has promised an update to Android 2.1 for the X10 range.Apart from a few minor issues the X10 Mini is certainly adorable if you are in the market for a compact smartphone. If typing is a concern then you can look at the X10 Mini Pro which we should be reviewing soon.

Pros

• Extremely small and attractive.
• Above average camera
• Judicious use of screen real estate
• Replaceable panels
• Plenty of connectivity options

Cons

• Android 1.6
• Short battery life and not user replaceable
• No Bluetooth file transfer