Sony Xperia X10 Mini Pro Teardown and Review

Introduction

Testing is done, we’re ready to tear this puppy apart. As with all of our teardowns, pictures are worth a thousand words – we definitely haven’t skimped here!

The device is cleverly built. Sliders are always a little bit trickier to take apart as manufacturers tend to get creative with the placement of their fasteners. The first step to tearing this baby down is to remove the variety of small Philips screws you see underneath the backcover. This will free the PCB from the main chassis.

Unfortunately, that’s not all you have to remove. We’ll admit, we were stumped. After several attempts to pry with our plastic spudger, we started peeling. Turns out, the remaining 4 (hex) screws holding the whole sandwich together are located underneath the keypad.

Once these are removed, you’ll have to do a little battle with the plastic clips securing the central housing. Once those are free, PCB come to me!

The rest is a cinch. The “keypad” is held into the LCD assembly via six Philips screws.

Details and Analysis

On a side note, the antenna for this device is a sticker located on the bottom edge of the exposed back-side of the device. Notice how if you were using the phone under regular circumstances, you wouldn’t touch it? Interesting! Also, note the solid aluminum shields over all IC’s. Sure they’re clip-ons but it’s clear that Sony wasn’t taking any risks.

Now for the juicy details. The baseband/app-core win on this device went to Qualcomm with the MSM7227. The ARM 11 core clocks in at a maximum frequency of 600MHz. The device also includes a 400MHz modem, 320MHz DSP, integrated Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, GPS and a fully stocked mini-fridge – all in a 12x12mm package.

This device is truly remarkable in terms of IC convergence – it’s an effective bare-bones reference design with the exception of a few outliers. Interestingly enough the QCOMM RTR6285 GSM Transceiver and PM7540 PMIC are the very same devices we saw on the BlackBerry 9650. Coincidence? Likely not – it even has the same GSM power Amp (SK77336) from Skyworks.

The memory win goes to Samsung with an undisclosed device – K524G2GACB. Surprisingly, this device only has 128MB of RAM. We didn’t know this until we took it apart – surprisingly enough, the limited memory had no impact during our review!

WiFi is tag-teamed by TriQuint and TI (TQM679002A and WL1271A respectively). The Cypress CY8CTMA 300E -36L wins the capacitive-sense controller.

Review: Sony Xperia X10 Mini Pro

What do we have here? The world’s smallest Android device!

What do we think of it? Well, errr, let’s talk about the specifications first!

Technical Specifications

• 600MHz MSM7227 Baseband/Applications processor
• 2.55″ screen with 320×240 lines of fairly vibrant LCD resolution
• 5.0MP camera
• MicroSD
• MicroUSB
• FM-radio
• Assisted GPS
• Bluetooth
• 802.11 b/g WiFi

Our “Pro” version of the mini also offers a slide-out keyboard – something Dr.Wreck’s massive thumbs both loved and hated.

Greats – Hardware

While the device feels thick, it also feels extremely solid. The slide is smooth and doesn’t bind when opened with one hand. The screen at 320×240 lines of resolution is also reasonably sharp. The first thing we thought of when unboxing this phone was the likelihood that the smaller capacitive screen, when paired with the common Android OS, would be hard to read and the accuracy of swipes would be lost.

Thankfully, we were wrong! Android on this device (V1.6) has been artfully skinned for greater efficiency on the smaller screen. Not only that, swipes and pokes seem extremely accurate, more-so than the EVO or Incredible. We can bet there’s a better capacitive sensor at play.

Also, a smaller screen equals less power requirements. The X10 Mini-Pro is powered via a small (by today’s standards) 970mAh battery. That managed ~1.5 days on a full-charge. That’s more than can be said for ANY other current Android smartphone.

This device is extremely small. We took the liberty of comparing: “The world’s smallest Android smartphone” to the “World’s largest”.

We also like that the headphone jack is positioned at the top of the device.

Greats – Software

A smaller screen can hurt – we’ll get to that later. Also, anyone with Android experience is looking for 2.x+, 1.6 doesn’t make the cut. The device has a good implementation of one finger zoom. You won’t find yourself wishing this device has more core functionality. It’s all there. Timescape, Sony’s version of Motorola Blur – is neat. It lets you keep up with news, Twitter updates and Facebook feeds similar to iPad’s new Flipboard app. That said, it’s not something we could see ourselves using every day.

Lastly, FM radio? Very cool – the headphones function as an antenna – Steve Jobs, take note!

Middle-Road

Don’t think for a minute that the screen is “big-enough”. If you’ve used any other Android-powered device, you’re going to feel naked and alone. That said, it’s the device’s design and Sony has done a good job of it. Webpages can be panned and zoomed with one finger (no-pinch support) and they render very fast.

The camera: We really like the 2-stage button. Tap it to launch the camera (which loads pretty quick) and hold it halfway for AF. Once you’re ready, pop it down and click! Unfortunately, that’s all the “great” that can be said for the 5MP image sensor.

Images still appear washed out. Also, due to the aspect ratio of the phone’s screen, there are no wide-screen shooting options. Low-light images appear grainy, there aren’t that many customizations (4-shooting options) and there is literally no zooming feature. We realize digital zoom sucks, but holy cow!

The keyboard also lines up along the middle of the road. The on-screen is a gripe – no doubt about it. The slide-out keyboard? Well, it’s not your 9700. That in mind, it’s passable at best. The space bar is in a good location, but the bottom edge has a sharp “lip” that your thumb hangs up on every-time your press it. It’s also very flexible and makes a lot of squeaking noises. Dr. Wreck thought his thumbs were dancing on mice.

Gripes

Unfortunately, there are a few of these. The on-screen keyboard is beans – the device doesn’t auto-rotate, only doing so when you slide out the keyboard.

Having a smaller screen means incompatibility with a ton of our favorite Android apps – a huge gripe. Sony does package this device with everything you’d need but apps play a massive role in smartphone success – especially in light of Apple’s marketing campaigns. Having so many options for screen size and resolution has got to be a major gripe for Android devs – this device won’t help.

This little guy is also ridiculously thick! Again, we understand this is probably due to the fact that the rest of the device is so small. We took the liberty of comparing it to a larger device (albeit, without a slide-out keyboard).

It isn’t that much thicker – it sure feels it though.

Also, once you’re inputting text, you can only travel back a certain number of characters. Want to fix a typo? You’re out of luck! Also the 5MP camera and MSM 722x is only capable of recording SD 640×480 video. It looks OK, but HD is standard! Especially considering the camera’s resolution.

Conclusion

We don’t mind this device. Sure it has its gripes and groans, they all do. The fact remains, it’s way smaller than anything we’ve come across – it fits easy in the pocket and the functionality really is there. We also don’t mind the QWERTY keyboard, it’s way better than any on-screen, we’d take it any-day. Also, the touch-screen is incredibly accurate and responsive considering the size. With less room for error, the Sony Engineers really had their work cut out for them.

If you’re looking for a small package that packs some punch, look no further. With the promise of firmware 2.x on the horizon, this device could be the one to have. Our overall preference is still for the larger feature-packed handsets. That said, to each their own!

Final Score: 7 wrecking-balls out of 10

Until next time, keep wrecking!