Sony Ericsson Xperia mini ST15i review

This would be my first android phone. Its been about 3 days since I am using it. As soon as it first arrived, the first thought that came to my mind was, “umm.. small is it?” But guys, let me tell you this little thing has lot packed inside.

“Judge me by my size, do you?”

The specification/price ratio is no doubt the best according to other products available in the market.

Processor:     1 Ghz Snapdragon

Ram:             512 MB

Screen:          3” (Bravia Engine Powered)

Battery:        1200 mAh

Camera:        Single, 5 MP, with HD recording and LED flash

Lets do the step by step unboxing. Firstly, thing that you would probably note is the touch sensitivity and it sure is awesome! The 3 inch capacitive display is a delight to use. It feels so smooth that you definitely play around with it for a while once you get hold of it. The ST15i does not have a QWERTY keyboard. This I thought would be a problem for my fat fingers while texting. But so far, I did not face any problem texting or emailing. Slight mistakes are forgiven, given the brilliant display and the amazing quality touch interface.

Sony ericsson has worked a lot on their UI. Its fun and very easy to use. IPhone imitations are visible at most places, especially while re-positioning the application icons. The timescape is a brilliant feature to use. The design is slightly thick 16mm, but it looks cool overall. With the elegant black matt finish back cover and SE logo, they also give you a glossy dark blue back cover in the box. The phone looks nice and cool, SE are know for good designs anyway.

And there was absolutely no noticeable lag in operation of the phone. Only once did the phone lagged by sec quarter sec so, while playing ninJump (may due to some background applications running).

Taking about the camera, the photographs were decent, but I expected a bit more out of the camera. The pictures could have been better with lesser light, although, given enough light, they are crisp. The HD recording gives you the size, but quality is moderate to good. Actually the camera could’ve been better as per the sony repute.

I’ve read people talking about sad battery life for this phone, but I would differ. With either wifi or packet data and GPS on most of the time, the phone still is on 42% after about a day’s use. Music although was not played too much today. Hoping that it lasts for atleast another 8-10hrs.

The sound of the earpiece is decent. With headphones, it becomes awesome! The bravia engine brings life to your images and videos :)

Score on Quadrant benchmark was about 1589 which is decent for this device.

So far I spoke a lot good about the phone, lets hear some bad.

Firstly, sometimes the display feels a bit flickery. The reason being the automatic brightness adjustment, depending on the ambient light. Unfortunately there is no way to disable this.

Secondly, If you have super fat fingers, you might mess-up your text messages (It works for me although)

Thirdly, I recently came across a forum about how the phone malfunctioned for many people due to getting heated up. The capacitive touch keys at the bottom started operating automatically for some people. You might want to go through this thread. But for me I’ve had no problem so far. (and keeping my fingers crossed that it does not come in future too)

http://talk.sonyericsson.com/message/111245

Finally the in-call voice is OK and the speaker phone is not loud enough. I feel Motorola devices have better voice quality.

Repeating again, my phone doesn’t show any signs of too much of heating up (considering my moderate use).

Verdict:

 Over all I found the phone to be total value for money.  If you have a very heavy use and you cannot resist tweeting or making a high score between two breaths, this one is not for you. If you have moderate use and you like speed, and cool graphics, awesome music, good daylight pics, and you do not live directly below the sun, and also want to be easy on your wallet too, this one is definitely for you.