Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini First Look
25 May 2010 by Olav Hellesø-Knutsen We have been using the Xperia X10 Mini during the weekend and you can read our initially impression here Wow! The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini has been in house this weekend and the impression so far are entirely positive. I have tried the X10 Mini a couple of times before but have not been able to go through all the features and check it out thoroughly. I have now, and the X10 Mini impresses me very much. Going from the quite large Xperia X10 with it's 4 inch display to this more handy model is a very pleasant experience. A couple of words I can think of describing the X10 Mini are Simplicity and Elegance. The hottest trend in the mobile phone business is to have large touch screens. Large displays requires large phone cases and the dimensions and weight of these phones are sometimes to much for a small pocket. With the Xperia X10 Mini, Sony Ericsson are doing things the other way around. Less is more. This is something I have wanted for a long time. I just did not know it before I tried the X10 Mini. Sure, 4 inch AMOLED display is nice and much content can be shown on the display at the same time. Going down in size requires compromises, but I am willing to give them up for the size of the X10 Mini. No compromises are done with features or user friendliness. The user interface is obviously tweaked thoroughly by Sony Ericsson, because I think the have got most things right this time.
X10 Mini fits nicely in one hand, and every task are possible to do with one hand and one finger. This works very well. The way Sony Ericsson has implemented the text input feature is just outstanding in my opinion. The correct large buttons pops up exactly when you need them. The sister model X10 Mini Pro, which also will be available soon, is a slider model and has a full QWERTY hardware keyboard in addition to the virtual keyboard. The keyboard on the Pro model is small, but very good. The X10 Mini Pro is a slider model but the keyboard does not add much to the size of the phone.
Xperia X10 Mini is running on Android Operating system version 1.6. A newer versions of the OS is available, and the X10 Mini will be upgradable to version 2.1 in 4th quarter 2010. Some new features will be introduces when that happens, but the importance of a OS version number is over hyped in my opinion. X10 Mini has some clever ways to solve challenges which not are available in version 1.6 of the OS. Multi-Touch is not possible with the X10 Mini, and it is not something I miss as every task is intended to be solved by one finger anyway. Take for example zoom in on photos. This is done by pressing a finger to the display and drag the finger up or down to zoom in our out. This functionality is added by Sony Ericsson and will not work in all applications. Google Maps being one of them. The battery capacity is 950 mAh which are average by today standards. I have not been able to test the performance as everything consuming extra power has been turned on during the initially testing period. Remember that the X10 Mini has Bluetooth, WLAN and GPS built in. Sony Ericsson claims 4 hours talk time and almost 12 days of standby time and that is not impressive. The 5 megapixel camera is probably a little behind compared to 8 and 12 megapixel mobile phone cameras, but the few pictures I have captured are good enough for small prints and regular attachments to email. In addition to the built in Google Mail application, only one email account can be setup with the email application.
Like on the bigger brother Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson has implemented their signature application Timescape. Timescape is a place where selected communication are ordered by time. Optional content are Twitter, Facebook, Messages and Missed calls. Mediascape is not installed, but the Media Player has the infinity button in place, so online related content for you songs are just a click away either via automatic YouTube search or search in the Sony Ericsson Playnow store. The PC-connection/power charger plug is a micro USB type and it is good to see Sony Ericsson using industry standard solutions here. Same thing with the audio output. A combined 3.5 mm audio jack/Sony Ericsson headset control input plug makes it possible to start and stop music functions with the included stereo headset MH810. There is no doubt in my mind that the X10 Mini will be Sony Ericsson's best seller this year. It will probably be even more popular than the T610, K750 or W995 was when they hit the market. The selling price of approximately 300 Euro is even lower than the price of a W995 are today. A bargain in my opinion. The W995 and X10 Mini display has the same pixel resolution and are of almost the same size W995's 2.6 inch vs 2.55 for X10 Mini. Some of you might prefer hard keys and the X10 Mini Pro coming in a couple of weeks will be the one for you. The X10 Mini is the same phone, but with added sliding QWERTY keyboard. I am waiting for the X10 Mini myself as I am fan of hardware QWERTY keyboards. View our unboxing video in the Esato Blog Comments On 4 Jul 11:46 andy wrote x10 mini cant transffers photo & music via bluetooth :( On 25 Jun 01:06 JoeFromUSA wrote What app did you download to get the virtual qwerty keyboard? Thanks :) On 19 Jun 23:53 mitesh wrote hi could you please tell us which qwerty keyboard app you have downloaded for the picture on this review. many thanks On 19 Jun 12:26 laffen wrote I have shown the X10 Mini to some of my friends, and two of them was so impressed by what they saw that they found out it was time to exchange the old Nokia with something new. The size was of importance to them. That is why a X10 Mini was choosen. It is nothing wrong with the speed of the X10 Mini. The same thing is going on in the camera business. The rush for having the latest version. But your old camera does not suddenly take worse pictures because a new model with more megapixels is released. On 14 Jun 15:34 NitroFan wrote With respect Laffen your a phone fanatic and would probably by the mid range size as well as all the colours :-) BUT in the real world exactly how many hight street customers are going to buy the same phone in two sizes? not a chance... sorry but I stand by my views. If your selling "Media Rich content you need a big screen, I assume that's why SE decided the X10 needed the biggest in its class? SE would be better served getting their SW up to date and up to speed, as from what I am hearing Timescape is STILL crashing Android once it has to deal with large numbers of contacts. Android IS beginning to challenge Apple in the USA apparently and the general public ARE getting savy as to what each version offers. SE saying ours is as good as the official release wont IMHO convince many people for much longer, particularly as it now looks as though Google wont be selling their own products directly for much longer the version war will then be run by the handset salesmen and women. On 7 Jun 23:34 laffen wrote @NitroFan I do not agree with you here. I have a X10 and a X10 mini. The X10 can do 90% of the things the larger X10 can do. I don't NEED a bigger screen for the things I am using my phone for. Size matters to me. That is why I most of the time are bringing the X10 Mini instead of the X10 when leaving the house I am sure Sony Ericsson are able to multitask and are working on a future firmware release as we speak. On 4 Jun 14:11 NitroFan wrote A totally pointless exercise, the whole point of smart phones is the media rich content they deliver and to make the most of that you NEED a BIG screen! SE would be better employed bringing the X10 up to speed OS wise! Tell us SE is still last quarter for an OS update that will STILL be one version one behind the latest due to hit the Nexus in the next few weeks! On 29 May 14:42 chris wrote i have seen a dummy of this phone and thing its totally wrong, the size and dimensions make it look like a toy to be lost within an hour On 29 May 13:52 dudi wrote it's already here in germany for 289€, but with o2 branding On 29 May 11:12 laffen wrote The keyboard app is called "Scandinavian Keyboard" by Trygve Aaberge. It has been downloaded over 50.000 times On 29 May 08:45 Phoner wrote Could you please tell the name of that QWERTY on-screen application you are using? On 25 May 19:34 Harry wrote Can you also post pictures taken with the camera in photo's section??? And also bigger pictures of the UI/applications desktop as posted above??? |
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