Just 4 months ago, I decided it was time for me to jump on the Android bandwagon and picked up a Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro, writing a really extensive review on it for this site as I discovered everything that Android had to offer. It’s been my daily driver ever since I bought it, and today I’m going to present a long-term review of this device, telling you how it is like to actually own and use over an extended period of time instead of the usual rundown after a 2-week blast.
Right at the outset, I’m ready to admit my love for this smartphone. The Xperia Mini Pro shows that you really don’t have to spend a lot of money or get a large touchscreen slab to get a huge package of fun. It’s still one of the best mid-range Android smartphones you can buy – it might not be the most powerful or the most expensive or the largest, and it doesn’t have the best display or the best keyboard or the best camera, but taken as a whole it just feels right. As an entire package, it’s a well-thought-out all-rounder. As far as how well the hardware has held up to my abuse, I can say that the sliding mechanism still feels tight as a drum, the glass front is still pristine despite my refusal to put a screen protector on it, the battery life is decent enough for me, the blasted rubber cover for the microUSB port hasn’t broken off yet, and I still really love the hardware keyboard. The 320×480 display has been perfectly adequate, except when apps are coded not to fit (*cough* Twitter for Android v3.0 and Path *cough*). What has taken a beating, however, is the back cover. The soft-touch finish still feels as good as new, but what isn’t so good anymore are the Sony Ericsson logo and the Xperia and HD insignias on the back, which look like they have rubbed off slightly. There’s still the odd creak here and there (Nokia still takes the crown for build quality, even when they make plastic phones like the N9), but everything else is perfect, even the unprotected camera lens. And I still think this is one of the cutest phones ever. I just love its size, its curves and how squat it looks. It’s totally the midget of Android phones…and I think I’ve said enough about that!
Since I bought this Xperia, Sony Ericsson has issued an update to Android 2.3.4 along with assorted bugfixes, with an upgrade to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) slated to arrive in late April to early May this year that I’m eagerly awaiting. Assuming Sony Ericsson makes good on its promise, I should be enjoying a pretty good birthday present! In many ways, I’m glad I made the move from Symbian to Android instead of, say, Symbian to Windows Phone because I’ve gained a thoroughly modern and slick user experience while still retaining the sort of functionality and hacking potential that Symbian has always had, such as the ability to take screenshots, muck around the filesystem, sideload apps, make use of microSD cards, drag photos and media on and off the memory card when the phone is hooked up to my PC, customize my homescreen with a bevy of widgets and even connect USB flash drives to my phone (through an adapter). That’s why I feel it makes far more sense for long-time Symbian users to move to Android when finding a replacement for their Symbian devices – you really do get the best of both worlds with a smooth and well-designed user interface along with all the geeky features you’ve been used to. The only real sacrifice is battery life, but that’s understandable given all the data synchronization going on in the background and the always-online nature of the OS. Not to say it’s excusable, but I can get through a day with the Xperia Mini Pro usually struggling to stay alive by evening. Definitely not up to Nokia E71 standards, but tolerable nonetheless.
I eventually got fed up with Sony Ericsson’s launcher and all the bloatware they’d stuffed on the already-limited internal memory, so I went ahead and rooted my device so that I could take off all the useless apps like Wisepilot, PlayNow and PopCap Games. I’d have gone ahead and flashed CyanogenMod to my Xperia Mini Pro but unfortunately there are some outstanding issues with the hardware keyboard and backlight, so I chose to stay with the (stripped down) stock ROM and install a third-party launcher from the Market to hide the Sony Ericsson abomination. My launcher of choice was (and is) LauncherPro, more for its simplicity and speed rather than its feature set and visual frippery. I know there are more frequently updated free launchers out there with greater functionality, but LauncherPro is more polished than ADW Launcher and refrains from being the fat, slow, massive, bloated app that is GO Launcher EX, which is pretty much on par with HTC’s Sense UI in terms of overwrought UI elements and unnecessary visual sparkle and complication. LauncherPro most closely mimics the stock Android Gingerbread launcher and then improves upon it, which is why it remains my favourite and I hope no one goes and messes with it.
I’m not a huge gamer, not on my tiny smartphone anyway, so the fact that the gaming ecosystem of Android is a complete mess doesn’t really bother me. What does strike me though, is how much rubbish there is on the Android Market – there isn’t a real lack of good, high-quality apps, but the sheer variety of crap on there, pages and pages of nonsense, does make finding the apps actually worth downloading rather difficult. One of the key issues that motivated me to switch from Symbian to Android was the fact that I couldn’t find a single free Twitter app that could even be considered passable. Well, on Android you do have many free Twitter apps that are all at least passable, but none that are really good. I’ve changed Twitter apps on my Android phone quicker than I’ve switched out any other app – I’ve been rather happily using the official Facebook, Tumblr and Dropbox apps, and I haven’t ever really felt a need to look for another podcatcher (I’ve stayed with Doggcatcher right from when I started using Android). But with Twitter? I’ve tried TweetDeck – lousy support for landscape orientation. Seesmic – ugly as sin. Plume – messy and unappealing UI. Twicca – Excellent, until you notice it doesn’t auto-update reliably so you miss your mentions and direct messages. TweetCaster and Ubersocial already look so ugly in the screenshots that I couldn’t even be bothered to download them. So I’ve been using the official Twitter for Android rather contentedly until I recoiled in horror when version 3.0 was released. I’m back on Twitter for Android v2.1.2 via a sideloaded .apk though I did give Plume another go after being rather impressed by it on my Honeycomb tablet. And that’s how I’ll roll until it stops working. Funny how there isn’t a single Twitter client on Android that’s actually perfect.
Despite my ongoing search for a Twitter app that I’m actually happy with, the Xperia Mini Pro has been such a great companion. The last 2 phones I loved this much was the (still excellent) Nokia N82 and the Nokia 6233 which I owned all the way back in 2006. Android has been really good at meeting my needs and fitting in with what I use my smartphone for, despite all its foibles and imperfections. Trust me, even though I like Android and like it a lot, I could spend several hours doing nothing but criticizing it. And even though I’ve been an Android user for a bit of time now, I’ve still got so much to play with. Even with all the customizations I’ve done so far, I’ve only just scratched the surface. Of all the things this smartphone platform can be accused for, no one can ever call it a boring OS.
Sony Ericsson have made some extremely crappy phones in the past, but in the past year they have made a real turnaround and gone right back to form with phones like this one, the Xperia Arc, and others. Now that Sony has taken full control over the joint venture and rumours abound of new hardware being launched very soon, I think we’re in for an exciting year ahead.
After 4 months, would I still recommend the Xperia Mini Pro? Yes, without a doubt. As far as mid-range Android phones go, you could do much, much worse.
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has written 21 articles for The Mobile Fanatics.
I'm a full-time applied drama and psychology student and part-time blogger who's interested in the mobile industry and loves phones all at the same time. Send me an email or find me on Twitter @alv1nW.
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