Sony Xperia X10 Mini
I had really not considered buying another Sony device, since my past experience with them has been so awful. Well, with the X10 Mini, Sony has come around: the phone uses standard USB connectors, standard MicroSD cards, and Google’s Android operating system.
Why is it a nice phone? It’s cheap (€200), tiny, sturdy, and very functional. It’s also very responsive, has a decent battery life, and has all the standard features that Android phones need to have (Edge, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth). The device also makes a good music player. Included are a nice set of accessories: screen protector, silicone case, stereo headset with microphone, and a USB cable and charger.
The stereo headset, while functional and with a microphone, looks dorky: the wires are too long, tangle up too easily, the microphone is too big, and left and right sides have different length wires; Sony should really try to emulate Apple in this regard.
With the tiny size, however, come inevitable limitations: the screen is only 240×320 and some Android applications just need more pixels. Typing on the touch screen is not that easy (but also not that hard with Better Keyboard). And the device only runs Android 1.6 (although a 2.1 upgrade is supposedly in the works).
Sony tries to compensate for the tiny screen size by having custom versions of some applications: home screen, mail, music player, calendaring, etc. Unfortunately, although they kind of get the job done in a pinch, Sony still seems as incapable as ever designing good looking, easy-to-use applications. Fortunately, there are plenty of good third party replacements available. A minor nuisance is that you can’t remove Sony’s software.
The use of Android 1.6 turns out not to be so much of a restriction; Android 1.6 is plenty fast on the device, and although some popular apps are missing, you can find pretty much everything you need, and for the most part even free.
A serious problem with the user interface is Sony’s widgets and themes; for some unfathomable reason, they use gray text on a blue background; applications that don’t override the theme’s default end up having nearly unreadable text, rendering another portion of the Android market applications useless (the same problem afflicts the large X10 phone). Some of the user interface elements are also confusing, such as check boxes that always contain a checkmark (it just changes color when you select/deselect it).
On the whole, the X10 is a typical Sony phone: great form factor, decent hardware, but marred by awful Sony software. But there is some progress: Sony is now using standard connectors and storage media. Maybe they’ll come around and ship a less hacked Android UI as well.
Here is an overview of the software I’m using:
| Application Type | Recommendation | Comments |
| Browser | built-in | The built-in browser is fine; Sony did a good job simplifying the UI for the small screen. |
| Home Page | built-in or GPE | The home page app is kind of a cross between the iPhone home page app and a WebOS scrollable widget screen. It also has four quicklaunch buttons in the corners. Altogether, a pretty decent design. Like iPhone, organizing apps is a bit tedious. The built-in Home Page app only allows one widget per screen. It’s usable, but I prefer GPE, which also runs well on the device. Instead of a 3×3 grid of apps, you get a 4×4 grid, and you can place multiple widgets on each screen. |
| Widgets | various (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) | The Timescape app included with the phone is pretty pointless. Sony should just drop it. |
| K9 | The device comes with standard Google Mail and Sony’s own Mail application. They may be good enough if you have just a single account, but for more complex E-mail needs, I recommend K9. | |
| Music Player | DoubleTwist | Sony’s music player doesn’t let you play by album. DoubleTwist not only has a much better user interface, it also synchronizes with a desktop app. With DoubleTwist, Android phones are better than iPhone/iPod for playing music. |
| Text Messaging | Handcents SMS | The built-in application lacks conversations, popups, and other features. Handcents SMS is free (ad supported) and provides all of those. |
| Contacts and Dialing | aContacts | The built-in dialer and contact manager is servicable, but not all that convenient. The aContacts application is considerably nicer, although even it is struggling with the small screen. |
| Accessories | built-in | The phone comes with some useful built-in apps: Camera, Calculator, NeoReader (bar codes), Alarm, Timer, Stopwatch, Backup/Restore. |
| Keyboard | Better Keyboard | The built-in keyboard works and has predictive text, but it’s limited and tedious. Better Keyboard works quite well, giving you an iPhone-sized keyboard in landscape mode; in portrait mode, compact-QWERTY is a good choice. |
| Calendar | CalWidget | The built-in calendar is pretty awful, and I haven’t found a good replacement. However, putting the free CalWidget on the home screen goes a long way towards alleviating that problem. |
| e-Books | Kindle | Yes, Kindle works on the device, and for reading sequentially, it’s quite nice, even on the small screen. |
| Navigation | Google Maps, Navigation | Sony includes some third party navigation app (Wisepilot), but it’s basically been obsoleted by Google’s navigation solution, which works fine on the device. |
| Games | (whatever you like) | Sony has included some trial-ware games; you can use them for free briefly, then you need to pay. And you can’t remove them, they just clutter up the launch screen. Sony, don’t do that; trial-ware should be uninstallable. |
The X10 Mini is a nice device, in particular as a second phone. As a primary phone, the on-screen keyboards may be too limiting and you might want to consider the X10 Mini Pro.
