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Sony’s had a pretty rough time of it over the past month, but at least its mobile division can share some good news with the unveiling of the new Sony Ericsson Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro. These Android-based teeny tiny smart phones are updated versions of last year’s X10 mini and X10 mini pro.
Lest you forget Sony makes TVs, both wee handsets feature a 3-inch ‘Reality Display’ with the Mobile Bravia Engine. That’s the same technology found in the superb Xperia Arc — it’s supposed to reduce image noise while improving colour, sharpness and contrast.
The ickle phones offer high-definition 720p video recording, and Sony Ericsson reckons the Xperia mini is the world’s smallest Android phone capable of such a videographic feat. We expect this record to last all of two days. The mini pro is a tad chunkier thanks to its slide-out Qwerty keyboard.
All that HD and display-processing goodness is possible thanks to a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. That’s not quite as snappy as this this year’s high-end phones, such as the HTC Sensation, but it’s certainly no slouch. They’ll both have the latest 2.3 Gingerbread version of Android.
There’s a decent enough 5-megapixel camera on board, offering a range of imaging niceties such as face and smile detection, LED flash, image stabilisation and touch focus, plus a front-facing VGA camera.
Sony has capitalised on the fact that, by law, everyone is now on Facebook, introducing Facebook Inside. What does this mean? Simply, Zuckerbook is now deeply integrated into many of the Xperia’s functions: the music player, the picture gallery, the phone book and the calendar.
Our heads are already spinning at the ghastly prospect of how easy it will now be to send deeply embarrassing videos accompanied by cheesy music to all our Facebook ‘friends’ every Saturday at 3.30am. Mercifully, LinkedIn isn’t an option.
Colours! We nearly forgot the colours. It’s very important to note that a range of shades will be available — probably dependent on which network you choose, how much you pay, and whether you’re a boy or a girl — including black, white, pink, dark pink, turquoise and blue.
Availability? Sometime this autumn.
