Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Review

Motorola were once the leading supplier of mobile phones in the world, but in recent years have fallen on hard times. Recently their fortunes seem to have been on the rebound, thanks in main to delivering some high quality handsets based on the Android Operating System. Another manufacturer who has had it tough recently is Sony Ericsson, and it seems they are prepared to follow a similar strategy to Motorola, in delivering some fine devices running on the exciting Android platform. We’ve already seen the X10, a giant of a device with a huge touchscreen, running on Android OS 1.6 with the Timescape User Interface laid over it. As a counter balance to this giant of a phone, Sony Ericsson are offering the X10 Mini, a scaled down version of the phone, and one we are going to take a look at in more detail right now.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini deals on contract from £8.40 per month
Sony Ericsson X10 Mini pay as you go from £89.90 per handset
Sony Ericsson X10 Mini review

With some manufacturers, creating a Mini version of an existing device usually means a few millimetres here and there, take of a few grams, and there you have it, a Mini Me phone. With Sony Ericsson, when they say Mini, they really mean Mini! The X10 Mini is a tiny handset, and could possibly lay claim to being the smallest smartphone around. The diminutive device measures in at just 83 x 50 x 16mm, and weighs in at an extremely pocket friendly 88g. Whilst a thickness of 16mm may seem out of proportion with the rest of the device, it actually gives the X10 Mini a solid, box like design, but in practice does nothing to detract from the X10 Mini’s appeal.

The X10 Mini has a capacitive touch display, with a QVGA resolution, supporting up to 16 million colours. The screen measures 2.55 inches across, and is good enough to get by with. Large smartphones spoil us with their glorious displays which deliver an excellent platform for video playback, and this is an area where the X10 Mini will suffer, but with the dimensions the phone has, there has to be a trade off somewhere. The display is covered by a scratch resistant surface, so should be able to handle a little pocket rub, and it also has an accelerometer which allows the display to automatically rotate to landscape mode and back to portrait mode again. The X10 Mini uses Sony Ericsson’s Timescape User Interface, which has four onscreen shortcut buttons on the display, giving quick access to the features you would use most often.

Although tiny in size, the X10 Mini packs in a lot of technology into that small form, starting with a high quality 5.0 Megapixel camera, complete with an LED flash and autofocus. Geotagging support is also included, and the X10 Mini camera will record video at VGA resolution, at up to 30 fps, which is none too shabby, either. Generally media is well represented on the handset; firstly Sony Ericsson have included a Stereo FM radio, with RDS support, and the media player supports multiple digital formats for both audio and video, including MP3, AAC, WMA, MP4 and WMV. Among the many features included on the device is an old favourite, the TrackID app, which allows you to tag music by recording a brief clip and then uploading it to Sony Ericsson’s online servers. Within a few seconds information about the track will be delivered to your handset, detailing the track name, artist and album, plus a link through which you can purchase the song.

The quad band X10 Mini also crams in all the connection technology you could want on a feature smartphone, with support for HSDPA and HSUPA over 3G, plus Class 10 EDGE and GPRS, with WiFi 802.11 b/g also included. The device uses a Micro USB port for connecting to a PC with a data cable, and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP is also available. A 3.5mm audio output jack allows you to plug in with your favourite headphones, and although internal memory is set to just 128MB, the device supports memory expansion using Micro SD memory cards, with the handset able to go up to 16 GB.

Android 1.6 is a bit of a bind, as all the latest goodies like Google Earth only appear on Android 2.1 devices. That said, the smaller screen would impact such applications, and overall there remains an excellent choice of apps to download and install to the phone from the Android market. Integration with Google services works well, as expected, plus the X10 Mini also delivers with a standard email client which supports POP3 and imap email, as well as supporting services like Google Maps and Google talk.

Sony Ericsson have been very shrewd in coming to market with the X10 Mini. There are many people who would like to take advantage of the Android experience, and enjoy a smartphone, without having to lug around a pocket busting beast all the time. And that is the consumer base that the X10 Mini will appeal to. Another clue to the market this handset is chasing is in the colour schemes available, with the phone coming in Pearl White, Black, Pink, Lime, Red and Silver.

The Sony Ericsson X10 Mini is expected to be available some time during Q2 2010.

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