Sony Ericsson announced today two new Androids: The X10 Mini and the X10 Mini Pro. My first impression, from the images I've seen, is that SE has come up with an insanely cool form factor that will present the joy of pocketability and comfort in the hand along side a unique set of problems that will cause quite the dilemma for the smartphone consumer.
Both phones feature 2.5", QVGA capacitive touch screens; 5.0 MP cams, 600 MHz Qualcomm processors, and will ship with Android 1.6. The display is at 320 x 240, which means the phone will face the same limited app compatibility as HTC's Tattoo. And while I think it's great that SE is pimping both a slide-out QWERTY flavor and one that's kb-free, can you imagine bangin' out work emails on the Mini standard for one lunch hour? I can't, and unless Sony Ericsson is sitting on the best voice recognition software known to man, I can't imagine the Mini will be very text friendly - even for the occasional, brief SMS. Since many apps don't play nice with QVGA, don't expect that you'll have a flurry of viable keyboard replacements at launch. To be fair, I'm sure developers will respond to the increased QVGA Android market with better virtual QWERTYs - possibly some 10-key, T-9 boards that fill most of the screen.
The Mini will be popping up next quarter in a variety of colors while the Pro will come in black and red. Head on over to DroidDog to see the little buggers on video
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