Sony Ericsson XPERIA mini and XPERIA mini pro Officially Announced

Our good pals at Sony Ericsson have just delivered the goods on the XPERIA mini and mini pro, a couple of devices that they say are the smallest HD smartphones in the world. What on earth does that mean? Let’s talk about it below. Meanwhile, these devices both have Android 2.3 Gingerbread running on them, can grab video at 720p, and use Sony’s BRAVIA engine along with Sony Ericsson’s custom UI. The big difference between then is that the XPERIA mini is a touchscreen-only device while the mini pro includes a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard for your tapping enjoyment.

Colors, colors! These phones come in a whole batch of different outer casing colorings, the XPERIA mini coming out with white, black, blue, or dark pink. The XPERIA mini pro, on the other hand, will be released as white, black, pink or turquoise. Both of these devices will be out in August of 2011, and the only place we know either of them will be carried thus far is Vodafone UK, and that’s just the mini pro – but surely they’ll be coming to the USA as well, right?

Both phones have basically the same specs aside from the keyboard: a 3-inch 320 x 480 scratch-resistant touchscreen, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 320MB of storage and a microSD card slot with included 2GB card included (max capacity not yet known.) For connectivity you’ll find quadband GSM/EDGE, UMTS/HSDPA, WiFi, AGPS, Bluetooth, an FM radio and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the back there’s a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash, and face-detection. A 1200mAh batter is included in each of the different phones, that being 30-percent better than the last version of the mini.

As far as UI, there’s still those fashionable four shortcut corners you love so much, but now each of them act as a shortcut to four icon spots for whatever you may want to place there. Then there’s a Facebook collaboration – one called “Facebook inside XPERIA” – adding a link button in the “most used areas” of the devices like picture gallery, music player, phonebook, and calendar. This same functionality will be offered as a download to XPERIA Play and XPERIA Arc later this year.

Behold them both, and have a look in the press release below for the whole tiny story.

Sony Ericsson unveils next-generation XPERIA minis

05 May 2011

Introducing two powerful, versatile and compact smartphones

Xperia™ mini – the world’s smallest HD video recording smartphone
Xperia™ mini pro –intuitive fast messaging in a compact smartphone

May 5th, 2011, London – Sony Ericsson unveils the new Xperia™ mini and Xperia™ mini pro, the latest additions to its Xperia™ family. Building on the success of the original mini series, these innovative smartphones come packed full of features, powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ processor, and run the latest platform of Google’s Android™ – Gingerbread 2.3. Beautifully designed, Xperia™ mini and Xperia™ mini pro both integrate best-in-class imaging and display technology from Sony, including Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine and HD video recording (720p).

The products offer a full multimedia entertainment experience. Xperia™ mini and Xperia™ mini pro enable access to over 150,000 apps on the Android Market™ and has a 3” scratch-resistant, multi-touch glass screen. The improved user interface allows up to 16 apps displayed on the home screen. Facebook inside Xperia™, a feature just announced for the Xperia™ family, provides a unique social media integration.

Xperia™ mini pro brings the optimized slide-out keyboard with smart functionality first seen on the Xperia™ pro to a compact smartphone. A subtle but fast Type & Send functionality eliminates the need to open a dedicated app for each type of message, and Smart Keyboard triggers predictive messaging actions automatically when the user slides out the keyboard. Xperia™ mini pro also comes pre-loaded with Office Suite and McAfee antivirus software, letting consumers manage documents and e-mails instantly and securely while on the move.

Steve Walker, Head of Marketing, Sony Ericsson said, “We wanted to provide consumers even greater choice across the Xperia™ range, while building on the success of the original mini series. These turbo-charged smartphones now contain even more power, enhanced functionality, a larger screen and premium features unique to Sony Ericsson. They are packed full of features, making them a perfect choice for consumers looking for all the benefits of Android and Sony in a beautiful and easy to use compact form factor.”

Sony Ericsson also unveils today a new integration, Facebook inside Xperia™, which will be included in the new Xperia™ mini and mini pro and soon to be available across the wider Xperia™ range. Facebook inside Xperia™ integrates social connections throughout the phone, by making Facebook immediately accessible from the most used areas of the phone such as the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar. As people are becoming increasingly reliant on their smartphones for instant communication, Sony Ericsson is enabling people to ‘like’, share and comment more easily than ever before with Facebook inside Xperia™.

Sony Ericsson Xperia™ mini – Key features

World’s smallest Android™ smartphone with HD video recording
Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine
Place up to 16 apps in the corners of your home screen
Over 150,000 apps on Android Market™
Facebook inside. Keeping your friends closer
Sony Ericsson Xperia™ mini pro – Key features

Ergonomic keyboard and smart functions for fast messaging
HD video and Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine
Synch your email and view office documents safely on the go
Place up to 16 apps in the corners of your home screen
Over 150,000 apps on Android Market™
Sony Ericsson Xperia™ mini pro and Xperia™ mini with HD will be available globally in selected markets from Q3.