Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro Review

Your Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro Reviews

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Reviewer: Derek Varley - Nottingham , UK
Date: 27th Apr 2011

Bought at 2 weeks old from eBay. Worked great for four months. One day it was fine, the next morning it was off & would not turn on, dead as a dodo. I sent to SBE under warrantee, but they said it was 'UNREPAIRABLE DUE TO A BENT MAIN BOARD'. As it had only ever lived in my pocket or on the table adjacent to my computer, this was a complete mystery. So I bought a Nokia N8 which is my best mobile EVER!

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Reviewer: J Harvey - Norwich, UK
Date: 4th Apr 2011

This phone is really easy to use, it can fit in almost any handbag or pocket even on girls clothing.

The QWERTY keyboard works well with even the lightest of touches & if you want to write shorter messages this phone also has a touch screen keyboard.

Internet connectivity is great & is easy to use whilst on applications or on the actual browsers.

5MP camera has not got the quality I would have liked but the video function does have a light which also can work as a torch if you are walking home late at night.

It is very easy to buy cases & covers that fit this phone & the same with screen protectors.

The option to change which icons you have in the corner is great. Music player works well, built in Internet radio.

What can I say really it is a great phone. Perhaps it took me a little while to get used to as I was used to a much older phone but it does everything it says on the tin.

Also by fitting it with a universal phone charger & headphone jack it means that they are easy to purchase if yours breaks or gets lost.

9.5 out of 10, I am sure it could be better in some way but I am not sure how.

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Reviewer: Michael - London, UK
Date: 24th Oct 2010

Finally, Sony Ericsson seem to have gotten the message, their custom connector port on their mobile phones, which they have used since the dawn of time, is very awkward & obsolete. These day's people do not want to carry dozens of different charging & connecting cables for all their different gadgets. & the other thing that really beggared believe was that Sony Ericsson devices just HAD TO use different memory cards than anybody else (Memory Sticks vs. SD Cards). No wonder, when I first learned that the newly released Sony Ericsson Vivaz mobile phone uses a micro USB charger & Micro SD cards, I was in a state of shock! Well, better late than never I suppose.

I did not buy the Vivaz, though, as I was out for an Android device. Not willing to fork out £400 for the Good of Android Phones, the HTC, it came down to either the HTC Wildfire or the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro. I went for the Mini Pro because of the physical keyboard & the higher video resolution (640 x 480).

The Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro is my first Android phone. I understand it is not running the latest version of Android (apparently, Sony Ericsson are looking to update the software in the coming weeks) but boy, am I pleasantly surprised by this relatively new operating system. I own an Apple iPod Touch & I thought the iOS is the best & easiest mobile device software out there. But hand on my heart, now I prefer the Android platform, as I think it is more open & customizable, but still has most of the ease of use of the Apple iOS. Anyway, this is a matter of preference, & how you are going to use a device on a day to day basis.

When it comes to my own preferences the Mini Pro ticks a lot of boxes. There is a visual indicator (flashing light) when I have a missed call or message. The capacitive touch-screen works a treat, even though the overall resolution of the screen (QVGA 240 x 320 pixels) could be higher. It is very responsive & manages to display all necessary information without looking crammed. There is a standard 3.5mm headphone socket, so I can use my own headphones to listen to music. Charging & data transfer is done with a micro USB to USB cable, & it charges when connected to a computer's USB port. The slide out keyboard (probably the main selling point of the Mini Pro) is sturdy & it doesn't creak when closed. It makes texting straight-forward & easy. I have even composed short e-mails without feeling tired. The Android version 1.6 on the Mini Pro does not allow for file transfers via Bluetooth. But there is a free app called 'Bluetooth File Transfer', & it just does that. & last but not least, the major point for any mobile phone, the call quality, is loud & clear on the Mini Pro. Oh yes, & it is very portable (small), too.

Things that I have been missing on the Mini Pro are customizable profiles, where you can choose a ringing tone, message alert tone, volume etc with a click of a button. There is a free Android App which I have downloaded, but this App seems to be very unstable, so I uninstalled it after a while. Now I just use the volume keys on the side to adjust ringer & message alert to a given environment. Turning the volume to zero automatically activates vibration mode, which I have to say is pretty weak, more than once I have missed a call because I was not able to feel the phone vibrating in my pocket.

Battery life is another weak point of the Mini Pro. Given the supplied 930mAh battery & the small screen resolution I was expecting to keep the phone running for at least a couple of days with medium to heavy usage. But if you use the Internet a lot, check your e-mails every hour, maybe play some music, use Wi-Fi & or Bluetooth, & make actually some calls as well, you have to recharge the device every evening. I often hear the excuse 'well, it is a mini computer, so what do you expect?' But look at Nokia & their phones. OK, Symbian OS is not as powerful as Android, but with the Nokia phones I often get 3 days worth of medium to heavy usage, & their screens are bigger. Anyway, battery life on the Mini Pro is a bit disappointing, but I can live with it.

Surfing the Internet works surprisingly well given the small screen size & resolution. This is because the Mini Pro has a nifty processor on board which loads the whole web page & then lets you scroll about without any delay. & as mentioned above, the very responsive capacitive touch screen adds to this already pleasant experience. & yes, it supports Adobe Flash.

Setting up your email is child's play. Just enter your email address & password, & hey, presto, you are up & running, no POP accounts to set up etc. Downside is that you can only access one email account at a time, unless you have a Google email account, then you can access & sync via the inbuilt Google syncing software, which also allows you to sync your Google contacts & calendars. & if you are still not satisfied with this syncing bonanza you can even set up a free Sony Ericsson account & sync your contacts & calendars with that account also, phew!

& what about syncing your media files? & what about if your media files are on an Apple Mac computer rather than a Windows PC? Despair not, my friend. Just go to the Sony Ericsson support website, download a free application called Media Sync for Mac, & presto, you can sync your music & videos straight from iTunes - SWEET!

The 5-megapixel camera on the Mini Pro produces decent pictures. I say 'decent' because I believe the 3.2-megapixel camera on my Nokia 5530 does a slightly better job. Also, the LED flash on the Mini Pro is not up to much. Still, it has auto focus & as mentioned above, the video resolution is a relatively high 640 x 480 (VGA).

If you are like me, & you like to give your phone that individual touch, then the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro has got you covered. Frequently used applications can be assigned to the 4 corners of the screen. Additionally you can have different home screens, each with its own 'widget', like a digital clock, recent calls or Sony Ericsson's own 'timescape' application. This application shows the latest updates on your twitter & facebook accounts, as well as recent missed calls or received messages. Swiping your finger up the screen gets you down to the Application Level, where all applications can be found in a 3 by 3 grid. Swipe left or right & it gets you to the next 9 applications & so on. You can assign any picture you have stored as a wallpaper, & this wallpaper moves together with your swipes, which I think is a pretty nice touch.

Another nice touch, messages are shown as 'conversations', rather than stand-alone messages, & are attached to individual contacts. This way you always know what you & the other person has said last. I know, this feature is not exclusive to the Android platform, but still, I like it.

What can I say about the music player, hmm, not much really. It's a very simple & straight forward affair. No custom equalizer settings, & the shuffle play cannot be activated WHILST a song is playing. I usually like to play a certain song & then want shuffle to take over, no can do here. Sound quality is good, but I would (again) prefer my Nokia 5530 in this department. At least you get some decent in-ear headphones straight out of the box, but invest another £30 or so in your own headphones & you will have an even better audio experience.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia 10 Mini Pro is a strange fellow. Being the smaller 'brother' of the Xperia 10, & given the small size of the device & screen, it should really be just another 'novelty-phone'. But it is too powerful to be just that. It has got all the power of the X10 (less the 8 megapixel camera) but comes in at almost half the size of its bigger brother. The screen size can be a bit frustrating when surfing the Internet for a longer period of time, but the slide-out keyboard makes up for this when writing longer texts or emails.

As I said above, I am very impressed with the Android platform, & I haven't even used the very latest version (v2.2). The Android Market is still a bit of a mess, though. True, anybody can develop applications for it which results in more variety. But paying for an app is not as straight forward as with the Apple Store. Also, because there is no quality control, you get a lot of spam apps, & frankly speaking, many apps that do not work properly. This is an age old question, long long before computers arrived, do people want a controlled system where they are restricted to a certain extent, but in return receive top notch quality? Or do they prefer an open system, where everybody can create to their heart's content, even though that heart might not seem so pure at times? This is not for me to answer.

As a phone, yes, even as a mini-computer, I can strongly recommend the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro. Pitfalls are the short battery life & the size of the screen. I have small hands, so my frustration with this is very limited. The most direct competitor to the Mini Pro is the HTC Wildfire. It has a bigger physical screen (same 240 x 320 resolution though) & it supports up to 32GB micro SD cards (as opposed to 16GB on the Mini Pro). But it has no physical keyboard & the video resolution is lower. There is also the £99 LG Optimus which runs Android, & Samsung is getting in on the act with the £150 Europa. These phones have a slightly larger screen (240 x 400 pixels), but their processors are slower & their cameras have lower resolutions.

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Reviewer: Peter - London, UK
Date: 10th Sep 2010

I've had this phone for about two months now, & it's a bit of a grower.

Good points are:
- Keyboard has good keys & is easy to use even one handed.
- No lag in operating & navigating.
- Plenty of android apps.
- It has a nice rubberised back which means no scratched plastic if you place it on a rough surface.

Negative points:
- Battery life is only one day - not good for a small screen,
- Although that is with fairly heavy texting & Internet usage.
- It's not much better with low usage & the screen brightness turned down.

Even with the brightness turned up it's hard to see it in bright sunlight.

I have small scratches on the screen even though I keep it in a micro fibre cloth pouch.

You can only have one type of notification for texts & calendar items, it can't be two different sounds.

The screen is sometimes hard to read the small text (even though I have perfect vision, facebook links are sometimes hard to read & certain apps do not allow zooming.

When texting the stupid language bar pops up obscuring the bottom of the screen! I don't want to change language!

Sometimes when texting fast it is slow to auto change from first letter upper case to second letter lower case, so the first & second letter are both upper case.

My phone seems to lose connection when I am composing a text! & then takes a while to come back even though the phone has not been moved.

A lot of apps do not function well with 3G, but that might be the application or Android. Facebook for e.g. I can push the post button about ten times & nothing happens, sometimes it posts the same thing ten times other times it does nothing.

Despite all the negatives, it's still a good phone. :)

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Reviewer: Tyler D - Sweden
Date: 4th Sep 2010

The perfect phone. It's beautiful & it's small but yet powerful. The slide out keyboard is fantastic. I love my X10 Mini Pro!



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