Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro

Sony Ericsson has decided to take a different approach with the release of Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro. They believe smaller phones such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro – which obviously means smaller screens, compared to all the other smarthpones out there – still gets people talking. So will this phone set the smartphone industry abuzz?

Design
One glance at the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro and its design really caught our eyes. It’s designed for those who look for style from their phones and it looks compact as well. It has got a few color options too, namely black, white, white with pink or blue. Although there’s no competing this phone in terms of compactness, but it’s still a little thick as there’s that side-sliding QWERTY keyboard. The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro also means some serious business in terms of being an upgrade from its predecessor. Instead of the 2.55 inch QVGA display, it now sports a much better 3 inch HVGA screen. It has got Sony’s Mobile Bravie Engine in it too, so that’s something great about the screen too. On the right side of the phone and closer to the top is the camera button which is pretty wide and easily accessible and towards the bottom is the volume rocker. The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro has its micro-USB port on the left while the audio jack on the top unlike the Sony Ericsson mini which has got both these ports on the bottom. That’s actually a good move by Sony Ericsson with the mini pro since on the Sony Ericsson Mini, the headphones come in the way of our palm. On the back is the 5MP camera whose camera button is two staged meaning you can focus the picture first. The QWERTY keyboard’s sliding mechanism is perfectly done. Although the phone is pretty small, but the keys are well spaced out avoiding those errors.

Features
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro comes with a 1GHz Snapdragon single core CPU for all its processing needs. To back it up is the 512MB RAM that goes with it. They both guarantee an almost lag free experience that was much to our liking. It was also capable of handling apps that usually take up large chunks of memory. The smaller screen size does some favors too in keeping the phone fast. It gave some good benchmark scores as well, and of later, Sony Ericsson’s being doing a good job in this department.

Sony Ericsson used to have the bad of giving really slow software updates to its users. However, they are now trying to distance themselves from that reputation by providing Android v2.3 Gingerbread right off the bat with this phone. That left us in smiles. As always, Sony Ericsson has also got a reputation of customizing its Android experience and it has done it again with the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro.  It sports a playful UI and also a more polished one from the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini. Although it must be said, it’s not as good as the famous HTC Sense it has still got some cool stuff like the lock animation and the kinky widget overview mode that makes it likeable. The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro sports an improved Timescape. The Timescape puts all your communications together to give you an aggregate view of your SMS, MMS, email and updates from your social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  It’s really cool as you get to stay updated with the stuff taking place around you and also do stuff like update your status and reply text messages. Timescape now can also be set as a homescreen widget meaning you have more space on your homescree as updates appear as tiles. What’s more, you can also add plugins from the Android Market with stuff like Foursquare and Gmail.

The 3 inch HVGA screen on the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro was the perfect choice to keep the phone compact and at the same time give the users a pretty good display. Viewing angles were good and colors were not outstanding but generally good. There’s an ambient light sensor that can sometimes be a bother since you get no freedom in setting the screen’s brightness. Under direct sunlight, the screen performs poorly. Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine is also included which translates to better photos and videos.

For a phone like the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro which lies somewhere in the middle of the high end and low end phones to provide a 5MP camera is pretty sweet. Sony has kept the interface for the camera as playful as other parts of the phone and you have a bunch of options to choose from too. It’s also nice to know that you can actually arrange the options keeping the one you use most on top. However, in terms on photo quality, the pictures taken weren’t so nice.  There was some serious lack in detail. Video recording on the other hand can be done at 720p. The videos show some lack in detail as well.

The small screen doesn’t help make the web browsing experience on the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro but when you disregard that for a while, it’s actually not bad.  The stock Android browser is fast and responsive too. It’s also got Flash Player which some smarthphones seem to lack.  Zooming and panning can be done at the same time too with no delays as well. It just made navigation on a page much more fun.

The performance of the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro was also put to test and we weren’t too happy with the incoming call quality. The calls were loud, but voices were sharp so you don’t really want to be talking on the phone for too long. Making calls had similar issues too as the mic lacked ability in providing depth. However, the loudspeaker was great.  The juice for this phone comes from a 1200mAh battery that is rather to give about 5.7 hours of talk time.  On average use of the phone, it lasted a whole day without needing a recharge.

Pros and Cons
Sony Ericsson has been able to come up with a unique yet stylish design with the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro. The QWERY keyboard had all the good features and the UI was well made too.

The camera wasn’t up to the standards and the call quality comes into question as well.

Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro will definitely hit it off with those looking for a stylish phone. It’s also got the specs to back it up, so it’s going to be a phone that stands out.