Undulations

When Sony Ericsson went ahead and announced their Xperia Mini and Xperia Mini Pro smartphones, they seemed to be ready and set to take over the midrange Android market for themselves. When these phones were launched, they very much did so, with their spec-sheets that boasted of 1GHz processors, out-of-the-box Gingerbread and HD video recording, all with a very competitive price tag — in a bird’s-eye view, these phones made most other offerings in the price bracket hang their head in shame.

But when the iron gets too hot, surely aren’t there compromises involved? Alas, I’m afraid,there are some. I can give the miniaturish screen a pass — it was rather a design decision than a flaw anyway. A serious culprit is the camera — while the 720p videos that it churned out where good by most standards, the snaps it made were not. The pictures, in most cases, where too blurry and smeared out; the camera software and it’s aggressive noise reduction most likely being the culprit.

There is another slighty more nagging flaw that the Mini’s bore — the substandard battery-life. The culprit here, surprisingly, is the phones USP itself — the 1 GHz processor. The phone’s smallish battery, rated at 1200mAh, is simply not enough for a 1GHz processor to stretch its legs - play a game on it, and the battery runs out in a little over 4 hours - ouch!

I wouldn’t dare say that the Xperia Mini and Mini Pro are any less stellar with these flaws — in fact, all the flaws aside, these phones still make the most valuable choice in their price-bracket. My point is, perhaps it’s not a very wise decision to slap a 1 GHz processor on a budget smartphone, especially, unless it’s matched up with an able battery. Anything less than 1800mAh is not enough for a lick by a 1GHz werewolf.