Amzar File

Compact Shadow Of The X10



The recently concluded 2010 Mobile World Congress had Sony Ericsson showcasing its latest Android smartphones starting with the miniaturized XPERIA X10 handsets. One of them, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro, sports a QWERTY slider form factor that should live up to its "pro" designation albeit with a diminished feature seat we've known from the delayed X10.

Miniature Features

Nothing best exemplifies what a Mini is than the watered-down features of its Android derivatives.

Your 1 GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon used in the X10 is now just 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 running the same Android Cupcake version with the UX user interface.

Sony could have done its markets a favour by using the later Android 2.0/2.1 Éclair.
Imaging resolution gets axed from a defining 8 megapixel camera to a plebeian 5 megapixel snapper with no image stabilization and touchfocus features on the X10. You still get autofocus, LED flash, geo tagging and video light. Its press release it is silent on the video recording details but it can't possibly be of the same WVGA resolution as that in the X10.

That's because you only get a QVGA 2.55-inch display, down from the X10's glorious 4-inch Wide-VGA display. At least you now get 16 million colors against the 64k colors on the X10, a gravity accelerometer and scratch resistant surface.

Phone memory almost disappears from a generous 1GB to just 128 MB in the Mini Pro but you still have microSD expandability of up to 16 GB.

Apart from those grossly diminished X10 features, the Mini Pro shares many other hardware and software goodies with the X10.

It's the same quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on the 2G network and a 3G with dual band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA. Data connectivity gets WiFi 82.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR and A2DP and microUSB 2,0. There's a built-in A-GPS, stereo FM receiver with RDS, Bluetooth A2DP and 3.5mm headphone jack for either wireless or wired headset listening.

On the software front, the Mini Pro has Timescape that aggregates all your communications and SNS updates on Facebook and Twitter in one location as well as Mediascape that draws together all your handset media content and those from the PlayNow music store and YouTube.

Conclusion
Sony Ericsson may have started a product strategy trend to affix the "pro" to create models with QWERTY sliders. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro is just the first with the Vivaz Pro as second. Admittedly, its unabashed pretense to being a pro with a simple "pro" appended to the X10 Mini name is more of a caricature with a next to useless QWERTY keyboard.

Good of Sony to retain the virtual on screen QWERTY using a stylus for a faster keying of data. But admittedly, even a diminished X10 feature set makes the Minis a capable smartphone by any definition. It should attract a younger crowd who prefer smaller and more pocket-friendly.