Sony Ericsson phones have been in the market for quite some time now and in these times we have seen some real spectacular handset and some not so good devices from this brand.
Txt Pro is the latest mobile phone we have from the house of Sony Ericsson. Touted as the device for text lovers, this feature phone brings along some real nice treats like a very comfortable QWERTY keypad and WiFi connectivity but still lacks on certain fronts.

Look and feel

Sony Ericsson has done some real hard work on the looks of Txt Pro, making it very nice and appealing to the eyes. The clean front of the device is highlighted with a big semi spherical key at the bottom and with the rounded corners this device looks real neat. The silver outlining adds a touch of contrast to the device giving it a feel of sophistication and finesse.

The design of Txt Pro is really slick that make it easy for users to handle it even with one hand. The matte finish at the back of the phone provides a good grip while making it immune to fingerprints and smudges. Overall as said earlier also the device scores some nice points in the look and feel department.

Display and touch

The Txt Pro has a 3 inch TFT LCD display which has optimum brightness level but somewhat disappoints with the low resolution of 200 x 400 pixels and a lower Pixel density of 155ppi displaying 256 colour palette.

The phone features a capacitive touch which is good to use but the down side is that it only has a one point capable touch system. Which means users can only use one finger at a time on this capacitive touch sensitive display.
The display is protected with a scratch resistant plastic based protective cover whereas most touchscreen displays today feature glass so no matter how much you protect it you will end up with a newer scratch every day if you have the habit of keeping phone in your pockets.

Operating system and performance

Sony Ericsson has used a custom developed operating system for the Txt Pro. Although the OS seems inspired from the Android based operating system on the Xperia Mini devices, it is in no way similar to that. The phone comes with the minimum possible applications but includes multiple Google and Yahoo based applications. And since the OS is built on Java, many different Java based applications will also be compatible on this device so users can download and install them on the device.

Performance wise this phone is good, during the whole review process this phone never froze. So be it the basic OS or the easy operating system but the bottom-line is that performance wise this device is good. The touch might give users a slight problem sometimes but does not have any adverse effects on its performance.

Keypad and Usability

The Sony Ericsson Txt Pro has a slide out full Qwerty keypad which is the base of this device and its identity as well. The keypad utilises a slide out mechanism which is of top notch and it is definitely built to last. Although it is slight tight in terms of operations but its full metal rails guarantee years of trouble free usage.

The four-row Qwerty keypad of the Txt Pro is not small, but it doesn’t have that awkward large keypad feeling as well. It has just the perfect size and key spacing allowing a comfortable usage even for those who have fat fingers. The buttons are slightly tough to press, but that provides a good feedback also and users won’t take much time in getting used to it.

Call performance

The call quality on the Sony Ericsson Txt Pro is good and both the speaker and the receiver are happy customers. The earpiece is loud and clear and so is the loudspeaker. The positioning of the microphone is clever as a downward facing microphone tends to catch less ambience noise as compared to a front facing microphone.

The supplied earplugs on the other hand are mediocre as compared to the standard Sony Ericsson quality. There is a 3.5 mm connector on the Txt Pro and an audiophile will definitely have to upgrade to a better pair to enjoy the music.

Multimedia

It has an inbuilt audio video player that supports most popular audio formats like MP3 and WMA to name a few, but supports only MP4 videos. Hence, users will have to convert the videos to MP4 all the time to play them on this device.

Txt Pro comes preinstalled with Sony Ericsson’s patented play now and track DJ service which more advanced users can make use of for better playability. As mentioned before, the handset has a 3.5mm Audio Jack connectivity which allows it to connect to any audio device very easily.

The Txt Pro features a nice 3.2 Megapixel camera, without a flash though. The quality of the camera is good in bright light to medium light conditions while in low light, the fun is gone. The camera performs reasonably okay and is good for a basic shooter only.

The company website claims this device to be capable of playing YouTube videos but sadly enough not just the native Browser but even the Opera Mini will not be able to play them for the users. Users will have to download a specific YouTube playback application which is available for select countries only.

Battery life

The performance of its battery is above average and despite having a 3 inch screen, the Txt Pro manages 2-3 day’s with nominal usage that includes 1-2 hour talk time, 1 hour music playback and some minor usages. Even if you go out of juice, don’t worry as the device retains charge quickly and within the first half hour of charging the device attains almost 50 per cent of battery power which is good enough to last a day.

Finally

The Txt Pro is a nice feature phone with most functions but with a hefty price tag. At Rs 7,500, there are low cost Android smartphones available in India including the Spice Mi 350 and Karbonn A1 and even the Micromax A70, so for a die hard Sony Ericsson fan this is a good phone but for others choices are plenty.

Sony Ericsson experimented with the Mini concept with Xperia X10 Mini which didn’t really set the cash registers on fire, reason? It was too small, too weak in terms of hardware. So this time around Sony put in much better hardware and made it slightly bigger. Does it make for great device now? Let’s find out.

Form Factor

This is bigger than X10 Mini – it comes with a 3.0 inch screen, which kind of in between the 2.8 entry level Android phones and little less than kind of industry average size of 3.2 inch. But in terms of usability, its corner based user interface (UI) makes it as usable as a bigger 3.5 inch smartphone.

Being a Mini, it is small but it is not the slimmest device, and that is in fact a good thing for this phone as the thickness makes it easier to hold and operate. Sony Ericsson has done a good job with the design of the phone. Some unusual touches like putting the 3.5 mm jack and USB port at the bottom instead of the top helps in holding the phone while you are using the ear phones.

Xperia Mini comes with three back panels in the box, one in mat black finish and two glossy finished – one each in red and blue. All of them look good; black one is better for the grip due to its mat finish.

The device has just one physical button just below the screen, which is a biggish home button, flanked by two capacitive buttons for return and options. The right side has a soft touch camera button and a volume rocker. At the top lies a power button. All the buttons are conveniently placed. The Chrome insert on both sides of the phone looks good, though opinions can vary here.

Hardware

The phone runs on a powerful 1 GHz Qualcomm Processor with 512 MB RAM, this combination provides it with a very smooth user experience. The touchscreen duty is done by a 3.0 inch capacitive unit which is very responsive, and is a delight to use.

The screen uses Sony’s Bravia Engine display technology, which makes the display look much better even with a fairly average Resolution of 320×480 pixels. The screen is also very readable even in bright sun light. Reading text in the screen is also very easy.

But due to some strange reason our test unit would hang, if we got any calls while running an app. This is not expected to out of a device with such good specs (for its size), and we think it is due to some problem specific to the handset we got for review.

What we didn’t like is the supplied ear phone – it has no clip, so it keeps falling off your ears, and its quality is also not up to the Sony Ericsson’s standard.

On the connectivity front it has a USB port, 3G HSPA (7.2mbps speed), WiFi, and Bluetooth. A-GPS is present for navigational purpose. The phone is a DLNA certified device which means that it can connect to any other DLNA device though WiFi.

User Interface

In most Android phones we do not talk about the user interface much as it is standard across similar versions of Android phones. However, this phone is different &#151 it has a heavily customised user interface to optimise the phone for a smaller screen.

The corner user interface that we have earlier seen in the X10 Mini, is much improved now – it is much more customizable, with each corner can now have up to four application of your choice and it’s a question of mere drag and drop. Hence, it is much easier to access almost all your frequently used apps.

Apart from that you have six customisable home screens. Sony Ericsson has used some of the very useful services like Track ID, which identifies the song that is playing through FM.

One of the best parts of the UI of Xperia Mini is its Facebook integration, which is present in Music App and in contacts as well. It has a dedicated home screen for Sony’s famed Timescape, which integrates notifications from Facebook, Twitter, mail and SMSes into one. Sony has also bundled PlayUp service, however it is too expansive to use.

It’s very difficult to talk about the UI in great detail but we must tell you that you will have a lot to discover in this UI and with each discovery you will find it easier and fun to use this phone. And discovery is not difficult as the design is intuitive.

While the phone plays videos with good bit rate, the video player application is fairly bland. Also the device does not play most of the video standards. With PC companion you convert any video to a suitable format but that will need a PC and some time from you.

The phone is based on Android 2.3 and so it comes with much improved user interface of the latest Android version. Further, the support for Indian languages enhances the appeal of Xperia Mini to a much larger audience.

Camera

Xperia Mini has a 5 Megapixel camera with a single LED flash. There is no secondary camera for video calling. The camera is capable of recording HD video in 720p. The camera comes with image stabilisation and face detection technologies and makes the job of photo capturing easier.

Camera does a good job of capturing stills in most conditions, it’s only when you get into really dim areas that you will find the camera taking a lot of time find the right exposure and the images coming out a bit grainy. But then you don’t expect it to be professional camera.
The videos are captured in 30 FPS which is good for a mobile camera, although results do not rival that of a dedicated camera but it’s good enough for most tasks.

Battery

The battery is small 1200 mAh unit, which is understandable given the small proportions of the device itself. But the battery life is at par with most Android phone with a full day back up with medium usage.

Verdict

The phone is priced at Rs 13,500, which puts it in the mid-level of the Android devices. The hardware, apart from the screen size, is at par with the phone priced two to three thousand rupee more. And with a user interface that is designed to maximise the space on this small device makes it a very attractive device especially for those who don’t like bulky devices in their pockets. Being a Sony device the music, camera and screen quality is of top notch. A safe buy if you are in the market for an all-rounder that is not bulky.