I have always been a fan of Sony Ericsson phones; I had one before the smartphone boom and it was flawless. My carrier (AT&T) never carries their good phones. Although I'm tech savvy and love gadgets, I procrastinated joining the smartphone movement simply because I didn't want to have to carry around such a large phone. One day I finally broke down and got an Android and loved it! However after a year of use I finally had enough of carrying that big thing around. I have an Android tablet when I want a bigger screen. So I looked at the AT&T store I found that the phones are just getting bigger and bigger! That's so American of us. After much searching, I found this beauty. Thank you Sony Ericsson! It has everything the big phones have but in a tiny package! It's smaller than I could imagine and I giggled for quite some time after unpacking it because it's just so cute!SIZE: Fits in the palm; can do just about everything one-handed with ease and most importantly, fits in all my pants pockets! I have no problem typing on it. When it is in portrait mode, the stock keyboard is set up like the old number pad style with multiple letters on each key. I didn't like that, but I can see how it might be needed if you have big fingers. I just downloaded my favorite keyboard app and surprisingly can still type just fine with a full keyboard in portrait mode. I usually end up selecting prediction words. It feels really nice in the hand; light but not cheap feeling.
SCREEN: Looks great. Even tiny text is readable. No complaints!
SOUND: Ringer and other media is loud and clear; great for such a small thing. For calls, I'd say it's about average for a smartphone.
BATTERY: Average for an Android. Not great. You would think it would be better with a smaller screen. I've never had to charge it during the day. I just make sure to toggle off wi-fi when I leave the house.
CAMERA: Great! It's only 5MP but it takes better pictures than my old phone that had an 8MP. This has image stabilization. I noticed sometimes it's a bit slow to take a picture and eventually realized that the worse the lighting is, the longer it takes. This is not a bad thing. It just takes the time to make sure it gets a good focused shot. It will beep right before it snaps. I like the dedicated camera button on the side, but you can set it to take pictures when you touch the screen as well. I love the camera interface swipe from one side for settings, swipe from the other side access your pictures (where the last 5 pictures are always viewable). The 3D panorama mode is a little tricky; it takes some practice. I viewed my pictures on my 55" TV (by sending it to the TV wirelessly with DLNA really cool!) and they looked amazing! As for the 3D, all the pictures looked 3D when I set my TV to 3D mode, so I don't know the difference.
SYSTEM/FEATURES: Very snappy. Much more responsive than my HTC Android which has a faster processor. Very little bloatware, most of it is easily uninstalled. This is great because with Android, you end up customizing it with apps from the market anyway. I'm not a big Facebook user so I can't comment on the "Facebook inside Xperia" feature, but it seems cool. The swipe to move through the screens is relatively large. You really have to fully swipe from one side of the screen to the other. That's taking me time to get used to, but what is really cool that instead of swiping through your screens, you can just swipe your fingers together and it will float all shortcuts/widgets on the screen. If the widget you are trying to access happens to be floating around in the back, you just shake the phone and they bounce around so you can get to it. There are also corner pockets which hold several apps and can be made available on all your screens or replaced with a widget. You can also chose to take a screenshot of your phone when you hold down the power button. Oh and one more thing... WI-FI TETHERING (using your phone as a wi-fi hot spot) without a tethering plan. AT&T must hate unlocked phones. HA!
IMPORTANT NOTE: I initially could not get this to work for data when I put my sim card in. The ST-15A IS 3G compatible with AT&T, but the automatic set up kept erroring. I took it to AT&T and they set my sim card to 3G (my old phone was "4G") and it still wouldn't set up. I was told to call Sony Ericsson, but when I got home I just did an internet search for the problem and found the right settings to enter in manually. It now works perfectly.
I've only had it about a week, however, I've spent a lot of time playing with it and testing things out so I can be confident in selling my old Android. If anything changes for the worse, I'll be sure to update this review. As it stands now, 5 stars!
UPDATE: There is a screen flickering problem with the Xperia Mini and Mini Pro. In some low light levels, it flickers as if it can't decide what brightness to stay at. This is apparently a very common problem, which I found out by doing an internet search. Hopefully it will get fixed with some sort of update to the way the light sensor works. It freaked me out when I first noticed it, thinking I had a broken phone, but now that I know it's "normal", it's just a minor annoyance. I am still amazed at how awesome this phone is. It hurts me to have to take off a star for this, for now. I'm keeping an eye out for a fix.
UPDATE JUNE 2012: I am now on my 2nd Xperia Mini. The first phone's earpiece stopped working after the first time I used the headphone jack. I received a call while it was plugged in to speakers, unplugged from the jack, and could not hear my caller. Tried troubleshooting on the phone with SE to no resolution. Returned to seller (within 30 days) and got another. The 2nd phone's touchscreen started to malfunction when it got warm, greater than about 85 degrees. It would start doing things on its own anytime I was outside (now that it's summer). I was about to send it in then I did an update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and the problem went away. The new OS is very sweet (no pun intended!).
UPDATE DECEMBER 2012: Still using the phone; it still works great. Never again had the problem that other reviewers complained about (vibrating/unusable when warm) after the system update. I have been using it on my deployment to Afghanistan and it works with the local cell provider sim card just fine. I am also using my WiFi to VoIP and save minutes.
The photographs are of good quality, sound is above average, and the integration with my email accounts and social networking is perfect. Actually online.
Buy Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini ST15a Unlocked Cellphone - US Warranty - Black Now
Good solid phone that works well. Android gives lots of options. Form factor is great. Sony update the software aswell so it stays current. Works with AT&T if you have the St 15a rather than the St 15i (international) for which data is slow.Read Best Reviews of Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini ST15a Unlocked Cellphone - US Warranty - Black Here
This item does not work when it gets warm / hot (like a summer day).I bought this in March 2012. It worked fine until late May, when occasionally, the touch screen wouldn't respond right -such as, swiping to unlock would only drag the unlock thing part of the way where it needed to go, so I couldn't unlock it sometimes. I noticed that this only occurred when I was outdoors with it.
It got real bad in July -If I were able to unlock it, I would tap an app, or tap a phone number to call (or answer a call), and it would show the call (or the app) for just long enough to see that it was trying to do something, and then it would shut it down. This happens all the time, unless I'm inside an air-conditioned building and have been inside for 30 minutes.
It gets to this bad condition fast -If I leave my air-conditioned office to make a call away from people, it gets into this state within about 2 minutes of getting outside.
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DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE. This Phone has design flaw making it unuseable. It vibrates constantly when warm due to a calibration defect. Check the internet. Poor custome service. DON'T TAKE THE RISK.
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