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Review: Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini pro

January 11th, 2011

I recently got a new Blackberry from Orange when I renewed my contract, so instead of keeping my old Curve 8900, I went to a mobile store, and traded it with a used Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini pro, been using it for a week now… Here’s my review:

The Good
- Perfect touchscreen, light touch but direct.
- Feels solid, good build quality.
- Android 2.1 Eclair UI been cleverly tweaked for the small screen, and is easy to browse through.
- Connected to the Android Market, limited to free applications only (MENA region).
- Full QWERTY keyboard is good to use, even for the size.
- Expandable memory, up-to 16gb.
- Great looking 5mp camera and video.
- Decent battery life for a smartphone.
- One of the cheapest high-quality smartphones out there.

The Not-So Good
- The size may be too small for some.
- The backing case that holds the battery, sim-card and SD-card is impossible to get off without force.
- No camera flash, only a photo-light.
- Feels slightly chunky.
- No Arabic support.

Price: 4/5 – Quality: 5/5 – Ease-of-use: 4/5 – Features: 5/5 – Overall: 4.5/5

This is not my first touchscreen phone (had an iPhone 2G, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic) but with the quality, I have to say I am mightily impressed by the phone. It is very easy to use, the whole phone feels very well-made, even the slide-out keyboard. The OS is very simple to understand. Teamed with the wonderful touchscreen, this makes the X10 Mini Pro a very easy phone to use. This being on Android, you of course have the Android Market, which has thousands of applications and games for you to download. Everything you’ll ever want on your smartphone is on there. Only one thing is bad, is that the phone won’t be upgraded to a newer Android version anytime soon.

If you are looking for a quality smartphone, but can’t afford the high-prices of most, and don’t mind going smaller in size, then this perfect for you. And if you’re not bothered by a keyboard, the X10 Mini is even cheaper. However I would say because of the size, the keyboard is a welcome addition.

It goes for ~280 JD approx (Blinx sells it for 278 JDs) for the brand-new, and around 140 JD (for a used one, visit any of those shops in Gardens or 7th Circle area).