Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro Review

Available from Clove for £245.58

Highlights-

* Android Operating System
* Compact easy-to-use design
* Timescape, gather all your communication in one place
* 3G/HSPA connectivity for fast data access
* Customize your home screen
* Download Applications with the Android Market

In an industry dominated by ever larger screens and an emphasis on specifications the like of which we could only dream about a year ago, the X10 range from Sony Ericsson breaks all of the rules and offers something entirely unique. In offers an experience you likely will not have seen before and should never work in any practical sense. It is a bizarre creation that defies everything we know about mobile phones, and especially smartphones, and at first glance looks like a toy phone that you would give your 3 year-old child so that they can be like you. After 2 days use, however, it is certainly not a toy.

In the box

Sony Ericsson has done well with the box contents and thrown in all of the usual stuff (AC charger, USB cable and headphones) plus a good quality screen protector and a microSD USB adaptor. The accessories are of very good quality and even the headphones are better than most smartphones tend to get bundled with these days. Overall, I was impressed with the thought put into ensuring that the buyer has everything they need to get started.

First Impressions

Well, what can I say about the size and shape of the X10? At a mere 90mm high and weighing in at only 120grams it is just daft when you first pick it up. There is surely no way on earth this can be a smartphone that is capable of anything serious!?!  It is bizarre in almost every way; the 17mm depth is quite large for a modern smartphone, but in a unit this size you almost do not notice it. It fits perfectly in the hand and everything from the weight to the form to the size works perfectly in coordination. This won’t make sense, but it almost feels bigger than it is when you start to use it.

It is amazing how quickly the human mind can adjust to new things and I found myself understanding what to do almost immediately. There are of course some compromises made because of the size, but most of them are perfectly logical and do not get in the way of using the phone for various tasks. This design has opened my eyes to what is possible and the inclusion of a keyboard is the most illogical and yet inspired idea for this particular phone.

Let’s look at the individual parts and see if they come together to make a smartphone worthy of your consideration-

Screen

This is without doubt the feature that should be most compromised by the size of the unit. At a mere 2.55” and with a resolution of only 240×320 pixels it does not compare to most of the other smartphones on the market. However, it works well outdoors and I did not feel overly constrained when using it. Some work has been done to ensure that the Android OS works as it should on such a small screen and small additions like icons in each corner to get to most used features work well. The fact that there is a hardware keyboard here as well means that you will always have the full screen available when texting, emailing and the like. Let’s be honest the screen isn’t great by any means, but it does the job and is usable in all conditions which is probably what the target market will want above all else.

General Performance

So far I have not suffered any major slowdowns which I had expected because of the lowly 600Mhz processor and 128MB of internal memory. It seems that the X10 is capable of sustained use, but when you really start to push it there will be the occasional stutter and stalling. This tends to happen with many Android smartphones, but I do wonder how well it will cope when more sophisticated apps are released.

Currently it is running Android 1.6 which is quite a few versions behind, but the good news is that Sony Ericsson is looking to update it to Android 2.1 in quarter 4 so all is not lost. Android 1.6 does not included Exchange calendar support and some other features which will never be used by most purchasers so the inclusion of 1.6 is probably perfectly sensible given who will buy the phone.

On that subject, I do wonder if Sony needed to make this an Android phone at all. This phone is not designed for people who want smartphones, yet it is definitely a smartphone. It is designed for people who want social networking, texting, a good camera and a fashionable design. It ticks the boxes here, but just maybe Android is an unnecessary step on the X10?

Camera

The camera is rated at 5 Megapixels and comes with a flash that can also be used when recording video. I have to say that the flash is not great, but that it is possible to capture some very good snaps if the lighting is good. The auto-focus seemed to be somewhat hit and miss for me, but using the macro setting helped a lot.

Video recording is not good and I could not produce a decent video with adequate sound and visuals. It does the job, as any camera does, but the 5 Megapixel spec sits in my mind and this is yet another smartphone that forgets to match the video to the stills capability.

It is interesting that Sony Ericsson does not even mention the camera in its features page for the phone and I am started to see why. A half-hearted camera effort.

Keyboard

Brilliant! No seriously. This phone should not have a usable keyboard, but it surely does. There are no standard cursor keys or number row, but somehow that does not matter. I found it very easy to use right from the start and, if anything, the compactness of the keyboard is an advantage in the same way that they are on BlackBerry smartphones.

Too many manufacturers feel that keyboards need to be ‘big’ to be easy to use, but the reality is that if one is designed well and the keys are tactile enough, any size will do. There is something so right about the size of the X10 mini and its keyboard and it produces an excellent data entry experience.

Call quality / Sound

Wow! This is strange, it truly is. I called my voicemail to have a quick check, expecting nothing special, and was amazed at the depth of the call quality. It sounded much better than my landline phone and is quite probably the best phone I have ever used in terms of to the ear call quality. Music quality is also very good through the supplied headphones, but even better when you use proper ones. It’s not iPhone 4 standard, but isn’t too far off and will please most people.

Now, the speakerphone is…. even better! It is simply not possible that a phone this small can produce such a sound. I tested the main speaker in a number of ways playing music, video and calls and it is superb. It is situated on the back which means you may end up putting your finger over it, but besides that this is the ‘best’ speaker I have used on any smartphone, and it is the smallest smartphone I have used. Go figure?

Battery

This is not the best I have seen and at only 970mAh hardly a surprise. When you consider that the X10 Mini has Wi-Fi, HSDPA, aGPS and all sorts of other features it will need more power behind it to survive a busy day. If you push this phone you can expect to be charging it more than once a day. I don’t like charging a phone once a day let alone twice so you can guess my thoughts on this particular feature.

Software

Wisepilot is included for navigation and does an adequate job considering the screen size, but the screen size is not ideal for such a task. I can’t see many X10 users using the phone for navigation anyway so it can be considered as merely a nice extra from Sony Ericsson. Timescape is included which acts as a hub for your communications- Facebook, Twitter, texts and other messages are store here and once you are used to it this is one app that you will want to see on all phones. It is like the webOS solution, but with slightly less smoothness.

Some games are included such as the excellent Peggle and Roller Coaster and there are also some decent business tools including RoadSync, Backup and Restore and NewReader. Creatouch needs to be used to understand (a bit of a novelty) and the rest is made up of standard Android apps that you will expect to find included. It is a comprehensive software setup that appears on most Android phones and one which will help you to accomplish what you need to. However, it does feel a little haphazard and as if lots of titles have been thrown in just to make the numbers up, a continuing problem with Android in my opinion.

Conclusion

The X10 Mini Pro throws the rule book out of the window as far as smartphone design is concerned. It is so tiny yet still works and offers a smartphone experience which is much more usable than could reasonably be expected. The excellent data entry turns it into a capable messenger and the sound quality is almost unrivalled. The battery is a problem though and will require the user to have a charger handy, but my overall impression of the X10 Mini Pro is positive.

It is well priced, imaginatively designed and a highly capable phone which is just too cute to put down.