Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 Mini Pro

The lack of a pink option when it comes to Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 Mini Pro, has swayed some consumers into choosing the X10 Mini over the mightier X10 Mini. However those who want a pink smart phone will no longer have to ditch the QWERTY keyboard in favour of the color availability.
The Xperia X10 Mini Pro is now available in pink and has been spotted on a UK online retailer, Additions Direct. It is available for £199 on the O2 network. It doesn’t appear to be in stock at the moment but, should be delivered within the next 14 days. The company also sell the standard black X10 Mini Pro, which again is on the O2 network. Likewise, it usually retails for £199 but, is currently on offer for £179.

When the keyboard is slid away out of sight, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro looks exactly the same as the Xperia Mini.
The three physical buttons of last year's X10 Mini Pro have been replaced by one bigger, chunkier Home button, with new capacitive touch buttons for Menu and Back either side of it.

 

As with the Xperia Mini, it's a change for the better. The Home key is big enough to find without fumbling, while the touch buttons are sensitive enough to work every time, also without fuss. The change makes the Mini Pro look a little more stylish than the X10 Mini Pro, too, with the glass of the screen extending right down to the base of the phone.

 

There's one extra bit of functionality revealed by the front face of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro - there's a second front-facing camera in here, producing low-res video and stills for web chats.
The connectivity options have been jiggled about to accommodate the sliding QWERTY keyboard. The top of the phone has the USB connector, which is covered by a little plastic stopper, plus the power and headphone jack, leaving the bottom of the phone completely featureless.

The right-hand edge houses the volume up/down rocker, while there's a nice, sensitive, two-stage shutter button for controlling the camera at the bottom.

The back is the same as the Xperia Mini. The snap-on cover has a matte, rubberised finish, making it easy to grip in the hand, plus the silver logos, trim and 'HD' text give it a nice designer appeal.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro features the same Bravia Engine and Reality Display combination as the Xperia Mini, with the result being a sharp, bright display running at 320 x 480 (HVGA) resolution.
Text is readable and icons clean and clear, while it's perfectly usable outdoors if you shove the brightness up to maximum.

As you may have noticed, the word "pro" is mobile phone manufacturer shorthand for saying "has a QWERTY keyboard", so there is... a QWERTY keyboard.

he keyboard's sliding mechanism is solid, with the phone snapping open and shut in a reassuringly stiff manner. The keys are backlit, featuring a similar rubberised coating to the back of the phone, so they have a rougher, grippier feel to them than the ones on last year's X10 Mini Pro.

There's a useful selection of alternate characters accessed by pressing the blue button, plus you can pull up a selection of awful smiley faces and the even more special special characters by tapping the Sym button.
There's also a four-button cursor key array, a shortcut to the keyboard settings menu and a tiny status display in the Android notifications bar, alerting you if Caps Lock is on or if you've double-pressed and therefore locked the alternate character function.