The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini we’re about to review is giving us quite an appetite. Picture this: A large course of lavish dinner table prepared just for you, filled with mouth-watering dishes, presented in a platter of delicacies to relish. Certainly, you won’t like or rather relish each recipe equally. Either way you may find it difficult to compare so many options with each other. If you’re still wondering where we are heading to, then it’s just a state we were in while reviewing the unit. Coming to the point, the tech market which seems to believe strongly in large touch displays, Sony Ericsson here begs to differ. The manufacturer has appeared to thrust its trust in shrinking sizes of gadgets which lead to the creation of Sony Xperia X10 Mini smartphone. So we lay our hands on the smartphone to pen down this detailed review.
Continuing the delicacy ride, we’d like to just grab some appetizers and examine slowly before jumping in to hog on the dishes served in a large (or shall we say ‘compact’) platter. The Xperia X10 Mini may turn out to be a really small one, miniature to be precise. Some users may find it to be just of the size of their palm. This means that it is easy to get a firm grip on one, while this also means that the touchscreen experience may turn out to be difficult. Our lips are zipped for now, since we’ll disclose the details one by one. The display side of the mobile phone comforted altogether three keys for the menu, home and back. The left edge has no keys and the right one thoughtfully comes with volume and camera buttons. The top of the handset houses the power and lock key, while the bottom edge has a mini USB port and audio jack. Obviously, the 5MP camera and flash are designed on the back, so photography enthusiasts can delight on this attribute. The Sony Ericsson logo gracefully takes its place on the lower half of the back panel.
Arriving to the soups and stews that are bound to accompany a meal, the mobile phone comes with customizable homescreens. The menu of the handset was very intuitive and kept us engaged with navigation features. The interesting thing about its homescreen was that four icons for messages, YouTube, call log, and phonebook rested on all four corners of the screen enabling quick access. If a new message appeared while updating our status on Facebook, it showed the lines of the message on the top of the screen for convenience while multitasking. Once logged in, you needn’t worry about signing in again and again. Users can select their Facebook or Twitter dedicated homescreen and start using it right away.
In spite of its small screen size, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini phone offers a very responsive and effortless navigation as well as a touchscreen experience. A 3 x 3 menu grid of five pages can be found on the device. As far as the basic calling facilities are concerned, the X10 Mini performed fairly well with good voice clarity. When answering calls using the mic of the handsfree, it disappointed us with the echo of our own voice. The handset’s microphone executes better and also delivers noise-isolation. Sadly, the handsfree’s mic button allowed us to only play or pause music and not skip to the next or previous track.
Our review unit was packaged with glossy red, shiny aluminum and pearl white back cases which seemed to provide trendy options. At mere 88gms, it measures 83mm x 50mm x 16mm only, thereby portraying a charming look. The Qualcomm MSM7227 600MHz processor does a good job by delivering smooth multitasking. So how much of an Android experience does it actually render on the 2.55” QVGA screen? Surprisingly, the answer to this question is ‘a lot’. Regardless of the minuscule size, the navigation and functioning of the device remained competitive. The only problems that we faced were related to its typing functionality, as it doesn’t employ a virtual QWERTY keypad.
Any meal would be incomplete if we didn’t toss in a variety of spices, adding zing to the entire main course. Technologically speaking, the X10 Mini’s software brought in that sparkle to the device. We would especially like to appreciate Sony Ericsson for making Android so convenient on the phone, despite its small size. Since it doesn’t support multi-touch, the zoom bar was a very smart way for zooming in and out of images. Music player, NeoReader barcode scanner, 30-day trial of Wisepilot car navigation app, video viewer, photo viewer and PlayNow online store are all a part of the bundle too. A multitude of widgets along with the company’s very own Timescape came out to be a pleasure to use. The communication options offered by this intensely appetizing handset were undoubtedly the best part about the Mini experience. Only if we had a virtual QWERTY keyboard, we’d have nothing to complain about. Nevertheless, the integration of all our friends from Twitter and Facebook as well as text messages was neatly put up in a vertical timeline by the Timescape. The Media Go sync for Windows and handset also delivered a complimenting job for PC synchronization.
When entering the main course delicacies, we first opened the device to check the complete hardware. To our surprise, the battery of the handset was well incorporated into it and left us with only a SIM card and a microSD card slot. Its curved rear side employed a 5MP camera featuring LED flash, a real astonishment for its size. And again for its tiny frame, the delivery of about 2592 x 1944 resolution photos and 640 x 480 videos appeared to be an achievement. The flash, video recorder, scene type and gallery were easily accessible as they were placed on the four corners as shortcuts. The only downside was the absence of enough internal memory. So we cannot start clicking pictures or capturing videos just right out of the box. The microSD card supports up to 16GB maximum memory expansion. Maybe because of the embedment of battery into the device, we were more than satisfied with the battery life. Up to two days of full usage was easily carried out on one charge. To sum up, the hadset was a real delight to work on.
Pros:
The compact size with well-fitted controls enhances touchscreen navigation and instinctive user interface.
We could easily move from landscape to portrait mode at any point of time.
With up to two days of battery life, users can pleasantly use the device to its full capacity.
The handset has a very enjoyable social networking integration.
Cons:
The headphone jack is inconveniently placed at the bottom of the device.
We couldn’t click pictures or listen to songs without a memory card, very low internal memory.
There was no option to adjust the image size while capturing pictures or videos.
The lack of a virtual QWERTY keypad made it difficult to type.
By now, we’re so sure that your intuitive taste buds would be craving for the sweetening desserts. So wrapping up with fresh baked items on the menu, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini handset has thoroughly harmonized vogue and utility. All the ingredients like the 5MP camera, social networking integration, condensed size, Android OS and more have been blended and cooked well to be simmered into a divine pie. Priced at Rs. 15,000, the affordable tech recipe has surely turned palatable. Weighing the price, features and elegance, we rate it a great 9 on 10.However, ensure that it doesn’t sweeten your high-tech tongue too much to miss out on the cons too. And because Sony Ericsson has promised us a software upgrade from Android 1.6 to Android 2.1, we should just glee even wider.