Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini - Size Matters Not

Good Things, Small Packages

2010 seems to be the year of the Android, and Sony Ericsson is one of the many that's taking that route. Unveiled as an integral part of its Fabulous Five devices during this year's Mobile World Congress, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini is an offshoot of its bigger sibling, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

With the 'mini' term tagged to it, there's no doubt that you'll get a smaller and easier to handle device than the X10's larger 4-inch sized display. However, when we first noticed the X10 mini, we had the impression that Sony Ericsson took 'mini' to be too literal with its 2.55-inch screen and 83 x 50 x 16 mm dimensions. But thanks to that, the X10 mini is possibly one of the smallest Android phones on the market now.  In fact, if you have sufficiently large hands, you might even be able to hold the X10 mini, clench your fists and the X10 mini would stay out of sight. Similarly, taking a phone call could be a bit awkward if you aren't used to the phone stretching no further than your ears.

Like its bigger comrade, the three staple buttons are present on the front - Menu, Home and Back, and a matte backing for a non-slip and easy gripping. Thankfully, the buttons are adequately raised for easy access, which also includes the volume and camera button. Oddly, Sony Ericsson chose to flush the power button at the top, which makes it hard to lock the phone with ease.

Beneath the device lies the 3.5mm audio jack and the microUSB port. The latter is hidden by a plastic cover, which became more of a hindrance when it comes to charging and connecting the X10 mini to a PC. We spent more time trying to pry the cover away to reveal the microUSB slot, and it wasn't made any easier if you don't have nails to get a better grip of the plastic cover. Fortunately, removing the battery casing was easier than expected, with a slight grip to the side and pulling the casing away. Once done, you'll notice that the X10 mini's battery is integrated within, hence you won't have the option to insert a backup battery should you be running dry. Other than that, the battery casing should stay closed unless there's a need to swap your SIM card or microSD card.

Restyled Android

While the physical differences of the X10 and X10 mini are easily discerned, the software aspect isn't rightly obvious at first glance. Like the earlier X10, the smaller X10 mini is loaded with Google Android 1.6, and comes with some slight interface tweaks from the original provided by Google. In fact, the X10 mini's user interface (UI) also bears some differences from its bigger sibling. The first thing you'll notice is the home screen, which is now populated by four shortcuts at the corners of the screen, rather than the 4 by 4 grid to park your apps or shortcuts. Instead, each page now houses one widget, with a limit of up to twenty pages. If none of the four shortcuts leads you to the apps of your choice, then you'll have to bring up the menu, which is now a 3 by 3 grid with multiple pages. Within, you can customize the four shortcuts accordingly, thus giving you some degree of flexibility in the interface.

Unlike its alternative with a QWERTY keyboard, the Sony Ericsson X10 mini pro, the X10 mini is fully reliant on the touchscreen. The abovementioned interface did well in the usability aspect, allowing one to move through the menus and apps with just your thumb. Diving deeper, we checked out its messaging and text input methods. A 9-key virtual numeric keypad is presented, with a slight twist. Swiping the keypad left or right would reveal another keypad for symbols and numeric input respectively.

Here's where the surprise is. You would naturally expect a tough time with a small touchscreen, but the X10 mini proved otherwise with its thumb-friendly UI and easy text input. The one downside is when switching from predictive input to multi-tap. Switching would have been made easier if holding a button would prompt the switch, instead of heading into the settings to swap the input method manually.

A Tiny Knockout

Built as a smartphone, the X10 mini is also loaded with a Qualcomm MSM 7227 600MHz processor. That brings us to its performance assessment - speed. We were pleased at how smooth the X10 mini performed, mostly seeing a fluid motion in the use of its interface. Multimedia, as usual, plays a major role in the Sony Ericsson lineup. And true to that, the X10 mini includes FM radio, a feature that's quite uncommon for Android devices. While audio quality varies when you plug in to the radio, its media player did return quality playback. But when it comes to video, the 2.55-inch screen running at 240 x 320 pixels resolution won't be your first choice for movie viewing on the phone.

For its imaging feature, the X10 mini is armed with a 5-megapixel camera, accompanied by a LED flash. We put the camera to our usual tests, with a strong incandescent lighting to test its auto white balance, and thus ascertain its detail levels and colors on the resolution and color charts. Now here comes the shock: the X10 mini did not manage to survive the warm lighting barraged upon it. In other words, under strong yellow lighting, the camera wasn't able to auto correct the white balance, and thus the images captured returned with a strong yellow tinge.

In the interest of getting a better look at its resolution and color results, we switched off the incandescent lights and took a few test images. The results returned show a reading of approximately 1000 on both the vertical and horizontal LPH. Colors did see some slight warm hues, noticeable within the darker areas.

Another consideration we look at is the battery life. Controlled parameters for the battery test are as such: volume and screen brightness at 100%, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi active with data streamed via Twitter, and a video of 240 x 320 pixels resolution on an endless loop. Due to the unique nature of the X10 mini being an Android device, and having no other devices close to its display size, we did a quick comparison against its bigger counterpart, the X10, and two other devices with similar battery capacities, albeit at a different screen size and operating systems - the LG Mini GD800 and Nokia 6710 Navigator.

While the X10 suffers from a battery mileage issue, the X10 mini managed to avoid that problem even at its 950mAh battery capacity. The one possible attribute would be its smaller screen size and lower resolution, which equates to less power consumption. This is supported further from the LG Mini results, which has a larger screen size at WVGA resolutions and a similar battery capacity to the X10 mini. Nonetheless, there's still room for improvement with its power efficiency, as we see when we compare it against the Nokia 6710 Navigator's 6 hours operation time in this harsh test.

Considering the X10 mini's petite nature and its average battery life, its portability index isn't too far off the mark, scoring the highest amongst the compared devices. It might be thicker than your usual offerings, but its compact nature should keep your pockets or bags relatively free and lighter than usual, for the same amount of juice. Remember though, that the X10 mini is surviving on the non-removable battery. With a single charge and having data being pulled in with calls and messages mixed in for a more typical day-to-day usage scenario, we noticed an empty battery bar by the end of a full day.

The Best of Both Worlds

Smartphones of today have taken on the mandate of having bigger screens, faster processors, and better industrial design. Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 mini goes one step further by shrinking it all down into the compact form factor that is presented before us. Some might have second thoughts of getting a device with a 2.55-inch screen that's fully reliant on touchscreen technology. We were able to dismiss that misgiving from what we've seen of the interface. Designed with ease of use in mind by mostly relying on just thumb actions, and an intuitive virtual numeric keypad for your text input, the X10 mini turned out to be a very usable device.

While the software has gotten a few pointers right, we do feel that more thought should have been put in for its hardware. Accessing the microUSB port was a painful affair, and should you forget to keep the X10 mini juiced up, you are faced with no backup options with its non-removable battery. Thankfully, the combination of a smaller screen size with lower resolution and its reasonable power management kept the X10 mini alive for up to a day, placing it as one of the top portable devices. Of course, video playback would be subjective, and in our case, we'd prefer a larger screen to enjoy movies on the go. Audio playback is pretty decent too, but when it comes to imaging, be duly aware that you could end up with unforgiving pictures under harsh lighting. Otherwise, we did appreciate the detail levels of the 5-megapixel camera, and not forgetting that having a LED flash is great for low-light shots too.

Ending off, here's another bonus that comes with the X10 mini - interchangeable covers. The X10 mini comes with either a black or white cover, and an additional lime green or red cover for you to switch and suit your mood for the day. In retrospect, the X10 mini is more suited for the trendsetters or those who seek a phone that doesn't eat up too much into their inventory space. There's a catch though - the X10 mini is priced at S$528 without contract, and when you consider its offerings to the suggested price, we do have to say it might be a bit too pricey for budget phone buyers. Prices aside, if you're looking for a very compact smartphone on the Android platform, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini is a good choice.

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