Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini

Some of you may already be familiar with Sony Ericsson's original Xperia X10 smartphone and its huge 4-inch screen. Although the X10 hasn't been out long, the manufacturer is now releasing a new compact version, the X10 Mini, also running on Android 1.6 (Donut). Could Sony Ericsson be making a stand against the never-ending battle for the biggest smartphone screen? Who knows, but at least it's providing an alternative, even if the pocket format and 2.55-inch screen could make marketing the 'connected user experience' and touch-screen controls a little more complicated. In spite of its watered-down processor, smaller battery and compact dimensions, the X10 Mini still looks like a pretty good phone. But will this new mini mobile have what it takes to prove a major success?

Small is the new big

It seems that certain manufacturers have had enough of making handsets with giant screens (for smartphones at least), and have now decided that small is the new big. One key advantage is that a compact phone can be easily slipped into a pocket and more or less forgotten about, even though you will inevitably have to fumble around in the bottom of your handbag to find the thing. Shame it wasn't supplied with some kind of protective cover then! Once in hand (and you'll only need one!), you start wondering how you're ever going to manage to navigate through the menus, write a text message, update your Facebook status or even just make a call with such a small phone. Well, let me assure you that you can do all that and more with no real problems.

We don't have a bad word to say about the phone's finish either, except that the back cover is a bit hard to get off, nor about the capacitive screen (240 x 320 pixels ), which is just as bright as the original X10's screen although it's still not multi-touch.

There are three physical buttons just under the screen, which you use to go back or to access the main menu. The phone takes a little too long to switch on for our liking, although it's not quite as slow as the Palm Pre Plus.

You'll have to make do with an alphanumeric keypad and predictive text to type out text messages and E-mails. Anyone who's used to that will find it just fine, but for those of you who are used to a full keyboard, the system may seem a little outdated, and you'll have to get used to it all over again. Anyone who spends a lot of time messaging will probably prefer to Mini Pro and its full physical keyboard.

Size isn't everything

Evidently, Sony Ericsson has had to think very hard about how to optimise navigation on a smartphone with such an unusually small screen. The X10 Mini has the same Nexus software layer designed for the Xperia X10, but with a few small adjustments designed to help you forget you ever even needed a 4-inch screen. A different icon in each corner of the display, for example, allows fast access to your phonebook, music, inbox or the keyboard.
The screen isn't clogged up with icons, and it's well designed and practical to use. You can easily access applications by running your finger over the arrow at the bottom of the screen.

As with the original X10, you'll be able to manage contacts and content more easily thanks to Timescape, which groups together all of the communication information relating to each contact, and Mediascape, for managing multimedia.

The X10 Mini's excellent responsiveness also helps gets the best out of this innovative and logically designed interface. There's practically no lag time at all, and we didn't notice any random slowness or glitches during our test. This means you can navigate through menus quickly and easily.

Web browsing could be better

Our suspicions were confirmed! Although the X10 Mini resizes web pages to display them correctly, it's not easy to read content on such a small screen. Scrolling up and down pages is fine but clicking on a link is a little more complicated ...

Both the multimedia interface (Mediascape) and the sound quality are decent enough. The X10 Mini is OK for taking pictures too, but you won't find yourself with many options. In spite of the X10 Mini's small size, Sony Ericsson has still managed to squeeze in a flash, which, although nothing special, can still be handy in low light. What's more, the resulting photos aren't bad at all. In fact, for a small handset of this kind, photos are really quite sharp and colours are accurately reproduced. The X10 Mini actually takes better pictures than the Xperia X10, which captures less detail and gives everything a slight red tinge.

However, the X10 Mini's battery didn't even make it through one day when we tested it. Let's hope that's because the model we tested was a prototype! We'd have to get our hands on a final model to confirm whether or not the battery life is really that bad.