The most awaited Android smartphone has reached T-Mobile under a host of 2-year plans which one can get it for free at 35 monthly. But the delay is well worth it as superlative features are everywhere with only some flaws its fans can live with. There really is no such thing as a perfect phone that Sony has aspired for its first Android to be. Never mind that it has no DivX/XviD video support, no secondary videocall camera and no FM stereo radio.
Now, with all the anticipation dying out and people are just saving up for it, the struggling Japanese handset maker is coming out with a Mini version this coming 2nd quarter which, by the looks of it on paper, is more perfect as an average handset that minimizes everything superlative about the X10 into everything average, with some below average, inside and out.
Welcome the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini. This time around, at least it has a stereo FM radio.
Minimizing the Superlatives
Sony Ericsson went overboard to minimize the superb features of the X10 to position the brand to a wider market. By the looks of it, the only way this Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini will ever take off is if it is offered by the carriers free for 18/month on a 2-year plan. Just about all the features that make the X10 stand out has been lopped off to make the X10 just another average Android handset on the market. From the outside, its full touchscreen monoblock body is 3mm thinner, 7mm narrower, 26mm shorter and weighs a considerable 47g lighter. That should endear the handset to a market that wants slim, compact and highly pocketable smartphones.
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini
- Next to the obvious body compacting is the screen diminution from a superlative 4-incher to a below average 2.6-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with QVGA resolution but with a more stunning 16 million colors. You still get the same accelerometer and scratch resistant surface.
- Imaging is another diminished feature lopping off 3 megapixels from the defining 8 megapixel shooter on the X10 to get another average feature – a 5 megapixel camera. It still comes with autofocus camera, LED Flash and geo tagging, but you won’t get the image stabilization and face/smile detection on the X10. Video recording is likewise minimized from WVGA to a conventional VGA resolution at the same 30fps with video light.
- Half price might be too much when you consider a generous 1GB onboard memory on the X10 has been pared down to a below average 128 MB in the Mini. Of course you still get microSD expandability of up to 16 GB. Not even up to 32 GB.
- All these feature pruning renders a 1GHz Snapdragon unnecessary and Sony rightly powered it with a less muscled Qualcomm MSM7227 processor clocked at 600 MHz to run the same Android 1.6 version with the Rachel/UX UI.
The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini gets 3G on dual band UMTS, HSDPA/HSUPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, microUSB 2.0,GPS with Google Maps and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Even its talk time is minimized from 10 hours to just 4 hours on the same 2G network.
Tags: accelerometer, android, diminution, fm stereo radio, inch tft, mini version, resistant surface, sony ericsson, stereo fm radio, superlatives, surface imaging, t mobile, video support, videocall, x10