Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini PRO

sony ericsson xperia mini pro review

Release Date:  Q2 2011
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"Mighty Mini"

Sony has decided to carry on with the philosophy that small is beautiful, with this upgrade of the very successful XPERIA X10 mini PRO. The original phone, though flawed in performance proved to be a very popular device with people who wanted an android™ device, but did not want to subscribe to the ever increasing size of handset. Sony proved that many were prepared to sacrifice power for the ultimate "Fun Size" experience.

Well sacrifice no more as this upgrade is now, although small in stature, powerful enough to mix in with the big boys and boasts some feature that will make other bigger, bolder devices just a little bit jealous.

As for when we can see the Sony Xperia Mini Pro in stores on U.K. shores is not too specific, but we know that is will roll out on Telefònica owned O2 sometime in June. Pricing is not yet known.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Screen

The screen is the first obviously noticeable change from the original Sony Xperia Mini Pro, with the new one taking up a larger area of the front panel at 3 inches as opposed to the original 2.5 inches. Not only has the size been upped but so has the resolution to an impressively crisp 320 × 480. These statistics have been backed up with the fact that the screen on the Xperia Mini Pro also now supports multi touch, and you can guarantee that it will stay looking good for longer due to a scratch resistant mineral glass construction.

As if that wasn’t all enough to keep Xperia Mini Fans happy the whole thing is now controlled by the Sony Mobile Bravia Engine, this gives extremely high contrast ratios to make sure that any HD video content you should choose to play back on your new Xperia Mini Pro looks as vibrant as possible.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Keyboard & Controls

To all those who remember the previous incarnation of these phones, you will know that the Xperia Mini Pro is the one that packs a full QWERTY keyboard in a slide out format, as opposed to the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini, which is a touch screen only affair.

The keyboard has also been upgraded from the previous model with the spacing between the keys being widened slightly, and the introduction of navigation arrow keys to make bashing through those text messages and status updates a breeze. There is also a new auto correct feature, this seems to make light work of automatically correcting those times when you catch the wrong button. All in all this is certainly as good as any small full keyboard interface on the market today.

Other controls on the Sony Xperia Mini Pro include Proximity Sensor for Auto Off and Accelerometer sensor for Auto Rotate feature. Marry this all together with the touch screen and you have a wonderful user interface making the Sony Xperia Mini Pro feel not quite so Mini.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Camera & Video

Functional but not ground breaking; the camera consists of a 5MP sensor with a resolution of 2592 × 1944, this comes with all the usual feature such as Autofocus, Geo-tagging, Image Stabilization, Touch Focus and LED Flash. It also comes with a cool Smile Detection feature where the camera can be set to take a shot automatically when someone smiles, which although not a necessary tool, could be quite fun to play with.

Video recording functionality of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro has been improved, with the addition of 720p recording and a lovely high resolution screen. Sony Mobile Bravia Engine is going to guarantee luscious video clips of your favourite moments, or you best mate meets bush in drunken romance! Conveniently uploaded straight to YouTube™. To cap off the package nicely the unit also has a front facing VGA camera for video calling and using you phone as a mirror!

Facebook™ Integration "Facebook™ inside Xperia"

Sony Ericsson have made a big thing of this for their new device, the Xperia Mini Pro because in a similar way to HTC Sense, they have integrated Facebook™ with the rest of the phones functionality so that news feeds, photos and contact information appears seamlessly in the contacts within your phone, enabling you to never miss that birthday again. The Xperia Mini Pro also has one very nifty little trick up its sleeve here, whereby you can "like" the music you are listening too straight through to your social networks, which Facebook™ disciples are going to love. Just one more aspect of life to share at the click of a virtual button.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Menu and Home screen Features

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro now runs Android™ 2.3 Gingerbread, which again is a step up from its predecessor, and features a very clever "Corner U.I." in which the user can store 4 apps in each corner of the screen for easy one handed one finger access (for those not so hot at math, that’s a total of 16). There are also 5 different home screens that are fully customizable with widgets, although the 4 corners remain the same regardless of the home screen you are on, giving you easy access to your favourites, Very neat!

Summary

Put all these things together in the sleek finish of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro and power it all up with a 1GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon and 512MB of Ram and you’ve got a recipe for success and this "Super Mini" of the mobile world is going to show a lot of people out there that bigger is not necessarily better.