Sony Ericsson Xperia mini review: Small is the new big

Introduction

It comes in a small package but has power to spare. Lovely little phone, assuming you can keep up with it. The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini is a full-fledged smartphone and you’ll need to be at ease with its multiple identities. But it’s not moping around wondering “Who will I be today?” With a friendly face like this, all the horsepower seems so much easier to handle.

Sony Ericsson Xeria mini

Many contemporary phones choose not to get obsessed with size. The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini is – but it works the other way around. Let’s just say it doesn’t want to get into the Freudian end of things. Big phones don’t seem to have the ambiguous symbolism of big cars. Maybe they never will. But the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini likes to be on the safe side obviously.

Whatever. The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini doesn’t need a shrink. Not beyond this point anyway. And we’d better stop analyzing and get busy reviewing it. Let's take a look at the specs first.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
• 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 3" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen of HVGA resolution (320 x 480), Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine
• Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread
• 1 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset
• 512 MB RAM
• 5 MP autofocus camera, LED flash, geotagging
• 720p video @ 30fps, continuous autofocus
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS
• microSD slot (32GB supported, 2GB card included)
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Voice dialing
• Adobe Flash 10.3 support
• User-accessible battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh

Main disadvantages

• No smart dialing
• No front-facing camera
• Loudspeaker performance is a mixed-bag
• No DivX/XviD support
• Typing a bit tricky on the smallish screen
• Doubtful video recording quality

Basically, the Xperia mini is a miniature version of the Neo or the Arc, and all the high-end ingredients that make up the new Xperia lineup are there. The mini has the same, albeit smaller, Reality display, the same processing power and even the same Android version as its elders.

Sony Ericsson Xperia mini live pictures

There’s something about the Xperia mini though that makes it even more inviting. Small is simple and beautiful. But small is affordable too. The mini Xperia costs around 200 euro at launch. And mind you, it’s not just a cheaper, smaller clone of the Xperia Arc. It’s a cool little gadget with loads of attitude.

Follow us on the next page to see what the Xperia mini is really made of.