Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro

Design
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro is a long name for such a small device but it brings along a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard to the table, so we’ll give it a pass. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro is no exception to the added bulk due to the physical keyboard. It has grown from 83 mm to 90 mm in length, but the difference in thickness with the X10 mini is minor, which is a good thing. At 120g it weighs just a bit more than the Samsung Galaxy S, which has a 4” screen.

The first difference that gets noticed is a nice chromed accent surrounding the phone, which divides the display and the keyboard halves. The phone can also be customized with red and pearl white back covers.

The Sony Ericsson engineers reshuffled the internals to fit in the keyboard which resulted in different port placements from the X10 mini. The headphone jack is now located at the top, where the power/lock key is located at. The microUSB port has also shifted to the left but with no protective cap this time. Located at the bottom are only the microphone and the lanyard slits. The 5MP camera’s LED flash and the other elements on the back have also been shifted around.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro’s keyboard feels well-oiled while opening, but requires additional pressure to snap it back which will probably loosen it up with prolonged usage. The keyboard is made from simple gray plastic and has a deep enough travel feedback but still feels quite cramped. There is not enough space to type quickly and comfortably and capping a letter close to the shift key requires a degree of finger flexibility. The two arrow keys on both sides of the space bar helps out a lot which would otherwise be somewhat hard to come to the exact letter by tapping on the small screen.

While the keyboard is tiny, it’s still a great help with typing on the miniature phone. In fact, users with bigger handsets and a physical keyboard usually use the virtual one for a short message or quick contact saves because it is just faster. While none of the mini handsets has a virtual QWERTY keyboard out of the box, with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro, you’ll always slide out the physical keys because that works best. To tell the truth, it’s beginning to feel like a totally different phone now; not so much a fashion accessory and exactly what the kid in Sony Ericsson’s Xperia family requires to become more functional.

Features
The same version of the Sony Ericsson UX interface found on the X10 mini has been redesigned for better navigation on small screens. The dozen home screens allow one widget to be placed on each and four app shortcuts are located in each corner of the screen for your most used applications. The menu is designed in pages which are changed by swiping left or right. There are a few more entertainment apps on the X10 mini pro as compared to the X10 mini but are unfortunately only available as trial versions.

The camera interface is the same simple screen with the four preset modes namely, auto, macro, twilight and sports, like the ones found in the X10 mini. The pictures taken outside came out a bit noisy and not very detail-rich on a cloudy day, but with true colours. Camera action is good with just a slight pause in between shots. Indoor pictures are decent, but noisy without flash usage from a short distance.

Video capturing resolution is 640×480 in MPEG-4 format and the video taken is quite smooth at 30 fps with a nice image quality to it. The only available video setting toggles the LED light on and off. The results from the snap test aren’t much different from the X10 mini which makes the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro a decent camera companion.

The loudspeaker is much better than the one on the X10 mini which was great with its deep bass, clear pitches and minimal distortion when playing music. Coupled with the usual top-notch music interface of Sony Ericsson, it makes the tiny cubist phone a great mobile player. Unfortunately the supplied stereo headset could’ve been better.

Voice quality with incoming calls was satisfying and the volume was sufficient. However, clarity was much worse on the other end and the other party reported muffled and muddy voices even though the volume was decent.

The battery of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro, a Li-Po 930 mAh, is rated at a measly 3.5 hours of talk time in 3G mode, and 15 days of standby.

Pros and Cons
The physical QWERTY keyboard combined with a nice design with chrome accents, good pictures and video and great loudspeaker are definitely the pros.

The cons of the mini pro are the cramped keys on the physical keyboard and a slightly thick handset.

Conclusion
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro takes all that made the X10 mini such an interesting handset and improves on it. It retains the original UX user interface that was redesigned for the tiny 2.54” display but adds a physical QWERTY keyboard to facilitate text input. The added weight and price are deterrents but we think that Sony Ericsson is willing to learn.

While the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 is company’s first Android-powered device, being first is not always good. You have to live up to some serious initial expectations and justify them in the best case scenarios. But Sony Ericsson obviously didn’t get the memo. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro is a promising device with a (mostly) bright future waiting for it as it’s quite the looker but there’re still stuffs that need polishing. With Android 1.6 (Donut) considered outdated, especially for a high-end smartphone.