Introduction
Sony Ericsson have always done a good job of putting big ideas in a small package. The original Xperia mini lineup wasn't ridiculously powerful but had plenty of personality. The pint-sized smartphones did well on the market and you can bet the successors are keen to build on their good start. The Xperia mini pro is under the lights today and ready to raise the bid.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro official photos
We can imagine the Arc and the Xperia Pro calling this one junior. Not even a hint of condescension in that though. The Xperia mini pro has the same hardware as its bigger Xperia siblings, a fact that makes the level of miniaturization all the more impressive. There's room for a proper QWERTY keyboard at that. And there is a Reality display too, a solid battery and HD video recording. Android 2.3 Gingerbread is in charge.
A respectable list of features and we're only starting. There is so much more to explore. Before we go on though, let’s take a closer look at all the key facts and figures, and the potential deal breakers.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM /GPRS/EDGE support
- 3G with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 3" 16M-color capacitive LED-backlit LCD touchscreen, HVGA res (320 x 480), Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine
- Full four-row, slide-out QWERTY keyboard
- 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
- Front facing VGA camera, video calls
- 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
Main disadvantages
- No smart dialing
- No DivX/XviD video support out of the box
- Doubtful video recording quality
For such a small handset, the Xperia mini pro leaves no major feature out. Not a phone to put up with being looked down on. Not after meticulously upgrading everything there was to upgrade about the original Xperia X10 Mini pro.
Surely it can’t be the perfect smartphone - not even trying to impress with raw power. The Xperia mini pro is more likely to surprise you and slowly work its way into you.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro live pictures
We hope you're ready to explore this compact smart messenger because our hardware tour is about to begin. The Xperia mini pro has a lot to offer there.
Big box, standard kit
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro comes in quite a big box but the contents are nothing out of the usual. A microUSB cable, a charger and a standard single-piece handset is all you get. There are a few leaflets too, while the 2GB microSD card is already inserted in the phone.
The Xperia mini pro retail package
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro 360-degree spin
The Xperia mini pro has almost the same size as its predecessor; it's barely a couple of millimeters in each direction. At 92 x 53 x 18 mm, this is still among the smallest QWERTY messengers. It seems the upgrades have added a bit of weight though. The new model weighs 136 g, up from 120, but no big deal compared to what you get.
Design and construction
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro has the look and feel of its Xperia X10 predecessor: a small, pocket-friendly messenger that offers a lot for its size and price. Some clever use of space and there's suddenly room for a 3" screen in what's virtually the same package.
We're having the pleasure of a white Xperia mini pro. It's entirely made of plastic: the battery cover has glossy finish that usually gets all smudged up in no time, but fingerprints are nearly invisible on the white paint. Those are inevitable on the screen of course.
There's little in the way of embellishments, which the white body seems to do well without. Two silver strips on both sides of the Xperia mini pro are the most conspicuous accents. The Home key up front and the QWERTY deck have the same trimming. The phone looks good in a simple, fresh way.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro has a 3” HVGA touchscreen – a scaled-down version of the so-called Reality display in the Arc and Neo. It's been scaled down both in size and resolution, but still a notable improvement from the original 2.55" QVGA display.
The LED-backlit LCD unit is enhanced by Sony’s proprietary Bravia Mobile Engine. The display produces really nice colors, has decent contrast but the viewing angles are limited. There's considerable loss of color when viewing at an angle. What we were impressed with is the excellent sunlight legibility.
The small Reality display is excellent
The capacitive screen has excellent sensitivity. The slightest of touches will do for user input to be registered.
Below the display is the usual trio of hardware controls. The difference to the last year's model is the Menu and Back keys are capacitive, with a single hardware control in the Home key. Quite surprisingly, the new Xperia mini pro has managed to both increase screen size and get better controls. The Home button has good press, while the capacitive controls are well-defined, nicely backlit and haptic enabled. All are very comfortable to use.
There are three keys at the bottom of the front panel
Above the display, we find a status LED, the earpiece, the proximity and the ambient light sensors plus the video-call camera. The proximity sensor disables the display during calls.
There's both manual and auto display brightness setting and the ambient light sensor is doing a good job of adjusting to the available lighting.
The earpiece is flanked by the status led, two sensors and the video-call camera
The left side of the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro is completely bare. The only thing to notice here is a small slit to use and pull the battery cover open.
The empty left side
On the right-hand side, things have stayed the same as before: the volume rocker on top and a shutter key at the bottom. The volume rocker is reasonably comfortable, the up and down keys are prominent and solid to press. The shutter key is super soft, with very deep half press. We liked it. .
The camera key and the volume rocker are on the right
On top of the handset is the power/lock key. It’s a bit small but easy to reach and press. The other things to find there are a microUSB port, the 3.5mm audio jack and the secondary microphone used for noise cancelation.
The screen lock key is right next to the Xperia mini pro peculiar audio jack
The bottom of the Xperia mini pro features the lanyard eyelet only. The microphone pinhole is on the QWERTY keyboard near the bottom of the phone.
The lanyard eyelet is at the bottom • the microphone pinhole is on the kyeboard
No more teasing, let’s slide the Xperia mini pro open and reveal its key feature: the four-row QWERTY keyboard. Just like its predecessor, the mini pro’s keyboard is reasonably sized and does a wonderful job unless you have really big fingers.
The keyboard is awesome if your fingers aren’t too big
There is enough space between the keys and the press feedback is good. There's something about this keyboard we liked better than the original X10 mini pro. Maybe the keys are a bit more prominent, or the finish is different - making them more tactile. Anyway, there's nothing in this keyboard to complain about. Of course, the size is something to consider - you'd do well to try this messenger to make sure it's a fit.
The back of the Xperia mini pro features the 5 megapixel camera lens and the LED flash. The loudspeaker also goes in here, slightly to the right.
The 5 megapixel camera is joined by the LED flash and the loudspeaker at the back
Removing the battery cover reveals the hot-swappable microSD card slot and the SIM compartment.
Taking a peek under the cover
The 1200mAh battery is said to ideally last 340 hours of standby and 5 hours and 25 minutes of talk time in a 3G network. In reality, the Xperia mini pro managed over 3 days in stand-by, connected to a Wi-Fi network most of the time. When we really put it under pressure though, the phone barely lasted a day. It was always connected to both the 3G and Wi-Fi networks, we did heavy browsing, music and video playback, and the usual benchmarks.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro is comfortable to handle and fits every pocket. There isn't a more compact messenger currently on the market. The Xperia mini pro is a well-built handset, with high quality, albeit plastic, finish. The slider runs sharp and even, no wobbles and such. The mini pro lives up to its name, efficient and a pleasure to use.
Handling the Xperia mini pro
Fast Gingerbread is fast
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Sony Ericsson have integrated it with the Timescape UI to make their products distinguishable. The mini pro inherits the four-corner homescreen interface introduced with the previous generation minis, but Sony Ericsson has done some improvements on it.
The four-corner UI aside, the rest of the interface is pretty much similar with what we saw in Arc, Neo and Play, although shrunk to fit on the HVGA resolution. Here is a video demonstrating the user interface.
We guess there is hardly a person left unfamiliar with the Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the latest Sony Ericsson skin, but we are still going to cover the basics just in case.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro UI
We are big fans of the Sony Ericsson's Overview mode on the homescreen - you pinch to zoom out on any of the 5 homescreen panes and a new pane sets in with a cool transition effect to display all of your active widgets. If there is not enough space for all the widgets - they start floating on the screen overlapping.
The Overview mode is has some similarities with HTC’s Leap view or what Samsung have on the Galaxy S. However widgets are not ordered in mini screens so you cannot see what’s on each of them. Widgets are shuffled instead so they can better use the space. They are as big as possible and thus easier to press.
The Overview mode helps you find the widget you are looking for
Now let's talk about the four small docks on each corner of the homescreen. They can host up to four shortcuts easily assignable with a drag-and-drop gesture. If a dock hosts a single shortcut (just the dialer for example), it is launched automatically when you tap on it. If there is more than one shortcut - the dock expands so you can make your choice properly. You can't put folders here.
Putting shortcuts in the corners
Creating folders on the homescreen is nice and simple, the way it’s done on the iPhone. You drag an icon over another and a pop-up appears, prompting you to select a name and layout for the new folder.
Creating folders is possible too
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro supports both static and live wallpapers. There are 15 static wallpapers and a single (Maps) live one, but you could always get more from the Market or assign a picture from your personal gallery.
The Xperia mini pro offers theme options too but the implementation is pretty simple - a theme only changes your wallpaper that you see on the homescreen and the system menus. On a better note, if you like Sony Ericsson's wave theme but you are tired of watching it in blue, now you can have it in a lot more colors.
Inside the main menu you will see shortcuts in the bottom corners. They let you sort your icons within the grid – you can either go for the automatic options (alphabetical, most used or recently installed) or you can manually move the icons.
There are different sorting options for the app drawer
The new Sony Ericsson app called LiveWare is preinstalled on the Xperia mini pro. It lets you set the behavior of your handset when paired with an accessory. You can have an app launch automatically when headset, headphones or a charger is connected. You can, for example make the mini pro start the music player each time you plug-in your headphones or go to picture frame mode each time you connect a charger.
LiveWare lets you have an app launch automatically when an accessory is connected
Text selection is a major change in the user interface since Gingerbread - it's done by placing two large pointers either side of the marked text. You can then drag each of those easily to make the selection you need. It really doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Text selection is improved in Android 2.3 Gingerbread
The Xperia mini pro UI auto-rotates in landscape mode every time you open the keyboard, but it can also rotate using the accelerometer sensor.
The Xperia mini pro UI in landscape
As far as general performance is concerned the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro does splendidly - no lags, no freezes or hiccups, no problems whatsoever. It uses a Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset featuring a 1 GHz Scorpion CPU and the Adreno 205 GPU - the same as the Xperia Neo, Arc, Pro and PLAY. But it's even faster because of the lower HVGA resolution. You can see for yourself from the benchmarks below.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro benchmarks
But it’s not synthetic benchmarks that we should focus on – the real life performance matters here and the Xperia mini pro is smooth as silk. Not that we expected less - Sony Ericsson is getting everything right in this respect lately.
A better Timescape UI
The Timescape brings all your communications together: an aggregate view of your SMS, MMS, email, call log, Facebook and Twitter updates. Timescape has a tabbed structure, allowing you to filter the contents by type and get all relevant information in one place.
The Timescape app • The Timescape widget
With Timescape you can not only see the latest activities and updates from your contacts but also share your own status, reply to received messages or call back if you have a missed call.
The best part of the new Timescape is you can set it as a widget on you homescreen. It will show all of your updates as tiles. You no longer need to sacrifice all your homescreen estate.
If all these functions are not enough for you, there are free Timescape plugins in the Android Market for the Sony Ericsson users. Currently, you can update your Timescape with mixi, Foursquare, Orkut, Gmail, Music and Photo extensions. The first three are similar to the other social services, while the last three show your latest emails, played songs and viewed pictures.
You can find Timescape plugins in the Android Market
Phonebook
The Xperia mini pro's visually customized phonebook can store extensive information about all your contacts. The list can be sorted by either first or last name.
The phonebook • The quick contacts can save you a click or two • the available options
You can sync with multiple accounts, including Exchange, and you can selectively show or hide contacts from some accounts, or set the phonebook to display only contacts with phone numbers.
If someone is added in more than one account, you can “join” their contact info. This can be really handy as you can have Facebook, Twitter or other service details all in the same place with the regular contact’s details.
Quick contacts are enabled – a tap on the contact’s photo brings up shortcuts for calling, texting or emailing the contact.
Each contact can have a variety of fields (and repeat fields of the same type), the plus and X buttons let you add and remove fields as needed. The fields cover anything from names (including a field to write down the name phonetically) to addresses, nicknames and notes.
There is an option to redirect calls directly to voicemail. Personalized ringtones are enabled too.
Editing a contact
You can "star" a contact, which puts it in the Favorites tab. Also, in each Gmail account there's a special group called "Starred in Android" where these contacts go automatically.
There are two contact search options – a dedicated search field on top of the contact list, and an alphabet scroll (available only when you start scrolling) to jump to names starting with a specific letter.
Telephony with no smart dialing
Just as all the latest Xperia phones, the mini pro held on to signal well and we didn’t experience dropped calls.
Reception levels are good on both ends of calls, the earpiece is loud enough and there were no interferences whatsoever. The built-in secondary microphone is used for active noise-cancellation so calls are loud and clear even in noisy environments.
Unfortunately, the Xperia mini pro does not support smart dialing. There’s voice dialing though (the quickest way to activate it is the dedicated homescreen widget).
No smart dialing but you can use voice dialing instead
Thanks to the proximity sensor, the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro automatically switches off its touchscreen when you hold it next to your ear during a call.
As usual, the phonebook, call log and dialer are all part of the same application. The call log shows all the dialed, received and missed calls all in one list.
We also ran our traditional loudspeaker test on the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro. Sony Ericsson has implemented the xLOUD technology within both mini and mini pro. It enhances the loudspeaker volume without distortion of the sound.
In reality the xLOUD works great for the Xperia mini making it ring much louder, while on mini pro it decreases the loudness. We have no idea why. Anyway, the mini pro scored a Good result with xLOUD turned off and an Average mark with xLOUD turned on. So we suggest keeping this setting off for the pro messenger. More info on our loudspeaker test as well as other results can be found here.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overal score | |
| HTC ChaCha | 63.3 | 61.2 | 72.7 | |
| 70.7 | 62.2 | 70.1 | ||
| Nokia E6 | 68.8 | 61.5 | 70.7 | |
| HTC Wildfire S | 73.5 | 66.1 | 69.6 | Good |
| 67.7 | 66.2 | 75.7 | ||
| HTC Desire Z | 72.7 | 72.7 | 82.5 | Very Good |
| 77.1 | 74.5 | 77.9 | Excellent |
Thrilled messaging
The messaging department of Android values simplicity in design and is very easy to use. All SMS/MMS communication is organized into threads.
Each thread is laid out as an IM chat session, the latest message at the bottom. You can manage individual messages (forward, copy, delete) and even lock them (against deletion). You can use search to find a specific message in all conversations.
The Quick Contacts feature only works in separate messages, not in the whole thread. You can also activate delivery reports.
The messaging app
Composing a text is a little frustrating as the text box starts off as a single line and grows only to three lines, which makes working with longer texts harder.
You can add multimedia (photos, videos, sounds, etc.), which will convert the message to an MMS.
Moving onto email, the Gmail app supports batch operations, which allow multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. The app supports multiple Gmail accounts, but there’s no unified inbox.
Gmail app supports batch operations and multiple (Gmail) accounts
There is also a generic email app for all your other email accounts and it can handle multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the messages in the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
The standard email app
Sony Ericsson has added a Preview Pane to the generic email client. The preview pane can be expanded and collapsed, as well as thumb scrolled. The nice thing here is the pane stays exactly where you left it and can save you a few taps. We didn't expect the Pane to work on the 3-inch display, but it turned out as useful as on a bigger and high-res one. You can check out our video demo to see how it works.
The preview pane
Google Talk handles the Instant Messaging department. The GTalk network is compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts.
Text input - virtual or real QWERTY keyboards
As for text input, the Xperia mini offers a just the default (Gingerbread) on-screen full QWERTY keyboard (portrait and landscape) and a virtual numeric pad in portrait mode only.
All of Xperia mini pro’s keyboards are pretty comfy
But who will need those when you have a sliding-out four-row full QWERTY keyboard. Just slide it, the phone will automatically switch the UI in landscape mode and you're good to go. If your fingers aren’t too big, the typing should be hassle-free.
A tap on the text area will reveal a “handle” attached to the text cursor – it’s easy and more accurate, which makes correcting mistakes easier. A tap and hold will bring up the select options – select word and select all – with two handles to adjust the start and end of the selection. Another tap and hold brings up the copy/cut options.
Text positioning
Cute gallery, downsized photos
The Xperia mini pro uses the traditional droid Gallery, which hasn’t really seen much change in Gingerbread. It has good functionality, cool 3D looks and nice transition effects, but unfortunately only shows a downsized version of your images.
The different albums and folders appear as piles of photos, which fall in neat grids once selected. If you have online albums over at Picasa those show up as separate stacks as well.
The gallery looks nice
Alternatively, your photos can be sorted by date with the help of a button in the top right corner, which switches between grid and timeline view.
In grid view, there’s a date slider, which can also be used to find photos taken on a certain date.
The gallery supports finger scrolling or panning so you can skip images without having to return to the default view.
Just swipe to the left or right when viewing a photo in fullscreen mode and the previous/next image will appear.
Thanks to the Xperia mini pro's multi-touch support pinch zooming is also available here.
The Android gallery still shows only downsized version of you images, though if you send one from here the full-res shot is received on the other end.
Unfortunately you are only getting downsized images here
Images can be cropped or rotated directly in the gallery. Quick sharing via Picasa, Email apps, Facebook, Bluetooth or MMS also comes in handy.
Poor video capabilities
There is no dedicated video player app on the Xperia mini pro as in most of the droids out there. Fair enough, maybe a fancy UI for picking a video is not that important, playing videos is what really counts. Well, that’s another disappointment – the video player supports only 3GP and MP4 videos.
To its credit, the Xperia mini pro did play a 720p MP4 video though (it records 720p videos, so it's expected to). And the 3 ” HVGA Reality screen is a pure joy to watch.
You are welcomed to download a capable video player off the Android Market and make your life easier though.
Watching a video on the Xperia mini pro
A familiar music player
The music player on the Xperia mini pro is quite a looker. The interface is laid out in four tabs for the available sorting options: all artists, all tracks, playlists and albums.
If you hit the menu key you’ll get send and delete options. There is also a dedicated search bar at the top.
The music player is decent looking and snappy
The Now Playing screen offers nothing but the standard music controls, shortcuts to the library, the current album and the Infinite key, which allows you to quickly look up a song or album on YouTube.
The only available visualization is the album art.
Pressing the Infinite button let’s you look up tracks on YouTube
The music fans will appreciate the equalizer: it’s a rich selection of presets. There is also an xLOUD setting to enhance the device speaker volume.
FM radio
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro is also equipped with an FM radio, which has a really neat and simple interface. It automatically scans the area for the available stations and places “notches” on the frequency dial for easier scrolling to the next station. Or you can mark some of them as favorite for easier scrolling.
The FM radio app • TrackID • Charts
The TrackID service for song recognition is also available and works within the radio app.
Splendid audio quality
Sony Ericsson droids have rarely disappointed in terms of audio quality and we were glad to find out that the Xperia mini pro isn't be an exception to the rule. The tiny messenger did pretty well in our audio quality test, especially when there was no resistance applied to its line-out.
When you use the mini pro with your home or car stereo its output is about as perfect as it gets. That observation is convincingly confirmed by the numbers in the table below.
Naturally, there's some degradation when headphones are connected, most notably in terms of stereo crosstalk and intermodulation distortion. Still, the mini pro remains quite a lot better than average and, in general, performs better than you could probably expect given its price tag and focus. It's good to know that even for that kind of cash you don't need to choose between solid smartphone experience and good audio output.
And here come the full results so you can see for yourselves:
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| +0.11, -0.10 | -89.7 | 89.5 | 0.013 | 0.037 | -91.0 | |
| +0.21, -0.10 | -89.4 | 89.1 | 0.070 | 0.224 | -56.7 | |
| +0.08, -0.23 | -86.8 | 88.7 | 0.027 | 0.131 | -84.1 | |
| +0.32, -0.18 | -86.6 | 86.3 | 0.098 | 0.323 | -58.2 | |
| +0.12, -0.55 | -75.6 | 76.5 | 0.024 | 0.093 | -70.7 | |
| +0.31, -0.20 | -74.9 | 75.6 | 0.093 | 0.341 | -60.4 | |
| +0.11, -0.47 | -83.8 | 85.6 | 0.021 | 0.060 | -81.2 | |
| +0.95, -0.21 | -83.2 | 83.6 | 0.024 | 0.487 | -43.1 | |
| +0.12, -0.09 | -89.4 | 89.2 | 0.013 | 0.037 | -91.5 | |
| +0.42, -0.12 | -89.1 | 88.8 | 0.179 | 0.314 | -46.6 |
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro frequency response
You can learn more about the whole testing process here.
A mid-range camera
The Xperia mini pro boasts a 5 megapixel snapper with a single LED flash. There is a handy dedicated shutter key too.
The user interface of the Xperia mini pro’s camera is quite intuitive. You have a bar with five shortcuts to popular features on the right, a bar with the latest captured images on the left and still camera/camcorder switch at the bottom. You can hide are expand both bars with swiping gestures.
The five most used shortcuts allow you to change the capturing mode, resolution, to pick a scene, turn on flash and switch to the front-facing camera.
The Xperia mini pro camera interface
Upon pressing the menu key (or dragging the left bar to the right side) you get some extra customizable options like focus mode, touch capture, white balance, geo tagging and image stabilization. The Xperia mini pro also boasts face detection and smile shot.
The image quality is good, but it could have been much better. There’s enough of fine detail in the Xperia mini pro shots and the color rendering is good, but the noise levels are too high and in some places you can observe the so-called staircase effect and purple-fringing too. We already saw quite similar camera samples in the Xperia Neo fella. We really hoped for better than that.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro camera samples
Photo quality comparison
We’ve also added the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro to the database of our Photo Compare Tool. The Tool’s page has a quick how to guide and also what to look for.
You can clearly see from the comparison tool that the shots are pretty much identical with Neo's samples and fall behind other 5 megapixel snappers.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro in our Photo Compare Tool
HD video recording is not so good
HD video recording is turning as a hot feature recently and the Xperia mini pro is doing relatively well with the framerate. It’s 30fps and quite steady too. As some previous Xperia devices, the mini pro also captures few duplicated frames, but not that much to ruin the video.
The Xperia mini pro camcorder supports continuous autofocus. Its approach is the same as on the Xperia X10, Arc, Neo, etc: it may take a few seconds to refocus after you reframe instead of fast and constant re-focusing. It’s certainly the approach we prefer.
The videos run smooth, but the captured detail is low and there's purple fringing on most high-contrasty edges. On the positive side, the color rendering is spot on. The HD samples look good on the small display, but they are not that great on a bigger screen.
Switching to camcorder mode
Check out the 720p sample that we captured with the Xperia mini pro.
Here is another one that we uploaded on YouTube for your convenience.
Video quality comparison
We added the Xperia mini pro samples to our Video Compare Tool database too and put it head to head with the other 720p mobile camcorders we have tested.
The lack of fine detail is evident when compared to competing products plus there's an obvious pinkish spot in the center of the frame. Sony Ericsson's own Xperia Neo seems to produce better results than the Xperia mini pro.
Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro in the Video Compare Tool
Connectivity
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro has the full set of connectivity options: quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band HSPA with download rates of up to 7.2 Mbps and upload at 5.76 Mbps.
It offers Wi-Fi (b/g/n) with DLNA support, USB v2.0 and Bluetooth 2.1. If you want to use the phone for DLNA, you should use the dedicated Connected Devices application.
Connected Devices app
The inbuilt storage is 400MB only, though additional storage can be added with a microSD card. The phone ships with a 2GB memory card, which has only 750MB of free space.
The standard 3.5mm audio jack completes the connectivity tally.
Android web browser and Flash support
Thanks to Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the Adobe Flash 10.3 support, the Xperia mini pro’s web browser does a great job.
The user interface is pretty light at first sight. Once the page loads, all you see is the URL bar and the bookmark button on a line at the top of the screen. Once you zoom in or pan around though even that line disappears (scroll to the top or press menu to bring it back).
Xperia pro web browser
The 3-inch HVGA screen may sounds not enough, but we can assure you it is and you have all that 3 inches for web browsing. The Xperia mini pro's browser supports double tap and pinch zooming, along with the dedicated virtual zoom buttons.
Browser in landscape mode • Settings
The browser supports text reflow, but it works only with double tap zooming – a moment after setting the zoom level, columns of text align to fit the screen width. Without text reflow you will either have to zoom out until the text fits (but then it’s too small to read comfortably) or scroll sideways to read each line.
Text reflow
The minimalist UI is quite powerful – hit the menu key and six keys pop up. You can open a new tab, switch tabs, refresh the page, go forward, and open bookmarks. The final button reveals even more options (text copying, find on page, etc.).
The bookmark list shows a thumbnail of the bookmarked page and you also get a “most visited” list in addition to the history.
Tab view • the bookmarks section • History • Most visited
The web browser has full Flash support with the Adobe Flash 10.3 player (downloadable for free from the Market). YouTube videos played quite smoothly (360p), and so did the games from Kongregate, for example.
Playing a You Tube video within the browser • Playing a flash game in the browser
The high-quality videos on YouTube and other Flash video services had some (or lots of) dropped frames, but the overall Flash performance turned out pretty decent. The YouTube app is still there though, just in case.
Great organizer
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro comes with a solid set of organizing options, including a document viewer.
The app in question is OfficeSuite and it has support for viewing document files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF, including the Office 2007 versions). For editing, you will need to get the paid app ($10).
The OfficeSuite reader
Reading documents is quite comfortable despite the compact screen and panning is blazing fast.
The OfficeSuite enables you to view Office documents on Xperia mini pro
The doc viewer integrates with the Gmail app, which makes viewing attachments a cinch. You can’t download them to the phone’s internal memory however. Attaching all kinds of files is possible though.
The calendar has four different types of view - daily, weekly, monthly and agenda view. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to act as a reminder.
The organizer centerpiece - the calendar
Agenda view shows a list of all the calendar entries from the recent past to the near future. It’s a very handy tool when you need to check your appointments for the next few days.
There is also a calculator aboard. It is nicely touch optimized - the buttons are really big and easy to hit.
Regular Calculator • Scientific Calculator
The alarm clock app allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own start and repeat time. Unfortunately, you don’t have the Stopwatch, Timer or World Clock options. You don’t get a Voice Recorder either.
The Clock • Creating alarm
But all of the applications missing on the Xperia mini pro can be downloaded for free off the Android Market in a matter of minutes, so it’s not a big deal really.
There are lots of icons in the in the main menu to mimic apps, but most of them are actually shortcuts to the web browser. The ones that do something are the Update Center - to check for updates from Sony Ericsson, NeoReader - a barcode scanner and Touchnote to create virtual postcards. That's pretty much all.
Update Center • NeoReader , Touchnote
Google Maps
The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro comes with a GPS receiver, which locked onto satellites in about 3 minutes with A-GPS turned off.
Google Maps is the main application and its Street View mode is probably the best part of the deal in places where turn-by-turn voice navigation isn’t yet offered. If the Street View is available in the area you're interested in, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the area. Zoom is supported through pinch and double tap gestures. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like making a virtual tour of the surroundings!
Google Maps 5.0 • Vector 3D maps
Turn-by-turn voice guidance using Google Maps Navigation is only available in select countries and unless you live in one of them the best you can do is plan a route in advance and keep an eye on your current location during travel.
You get the Xperia mini pro with Maps 5 out of the box, which gives you access to some great features. Offline rerouting is one – if you stray off course, Maps will recalculate the route without the need for an Internet connection. You can’t change the destination without connection though. There are also 3D buildings (where available), two finger rotation, tilting and so on.
Depending on your region you may get the Xperia mini pro with Wisepilot navigation pre-installed, but you'll have to pay for it.
The Android Market you'll visit the most, but you have PlayNow too
The structure of the Android Market is quite simple – featured apps on top and three buttons (Applications, Games and My apps). There is also a shortcut up there for initiating a search.
The Android Market • Market categories
The Applications and Games sections are divided into subsections (e.g. Communication, Entertainment etc.) so you can filter the apps that are relevant to you. Of course, there is also an option of displaying them all in bulk, but you’ll probably need days to browse them all that way.
App description • Category
There are all kinds of apps in the Android market and the most important ones are covered (file managers, navigation apps, document readers etc.).
Sony Ericsson's own store called PlayNow is also on board. There you can get a lot of free things for your phone - wallpapers, some games and apps or even music tracks.
PlayNow Store
Final words
We're impressed with the Xperia mini pro, and can't hide it. Having tested many of the recent Sony Ericsson smartphones, we have to admit the difference between old and new Xperia has never been so sharp. Keeping it all so neat and compact while nearly putting the specs through the roof is a remarkable achievement.
Sony Ericsson have managed to squeeze an Arc's engine in the Xperia mini pro. The Reality display is here too, never mind it's a smaller HVGA unit. The real deal though is the proper QWERTY keyboard.
The Xperia mini pro runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Thanks to the lower screen resolution, the mini pro is as fast as possible - you can see that in the benchmarks and our demo video. The whole UI is fluid and responsive, there are no lags, nothing to annoy even the most demanding users.
The one thing missing, that you get with the Arc and the Neo, is the Exmor R camera sensor. There had to be something missing, right? We still think though that the 5 megapixel stills and HD video are more than enough in a handset that puts compact size first.
The Xperia mini pro is probably in a game that's virtually free of competition. It's hard to match the features and keep the price within limits. Keeping it that compact is harder still. We still have a few handsets in mind, in case you are willing to consider something different - for the most part it would mean settling for less.
To get the obvious out of the way, the Sony Ericsson txt pro is half the price of an Xperia mini pro. It's obviously not a smartphone but does the basic social integration, has all the needed connectivity and a QWERTY keyboard. It is basically the size of our guest of honor - the Xperia mini pro. It sounds like a deal if you don’t need the complications of a smartphone.
Sony Ericsson txt pro
Although a different form factor, the HTC ChaCha is an option to consider if QWERTY is a must. The ChaCha runs on Android Gingerbread too, but has room for a much smaller and less impressive display. Deep Facebook integration is a key feature, and users are welcomed by HTC Sense and the light and compact metallic body. It costs about as much as the Xperia mini pro.
HTC ChaCha
We'll say it again though, it's hard to match the Xperia Mini concept - and Sony Ericsson are so far unchallenged in the ultra-compact class. To fully appreciate the Xperia mini pro, we just have to look back once again at the predecessor. The original Xperia X10 mini pro has a smaller low-res screen, an older generation 600MHz processor and the outdated Android 2.1 Eclair. If someone were to offer you a phone that addresses all those issues, would you not snap their hand off?
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro
Maybe you would, or maybe you wouldn't. The Xperia mini pro should be looking forward to a bright future not only for its upgrade value. Compact phones may have little impact on a market moving steadily towards massive screens and tablets. But compact is a good way to make a difference. There are few phones that try. Fewer still do better than the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro.
GSMARENA
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