London – SonyEricsson is upgrading its Xperia mini and Xperia mini
pro smartphones to offer the latest Android OS (Gingerbread 2.3), faster
processor at 1GHz, larger multitouch screen at 3 inches, and other
improvements.
One model, the touchscreen-only Xperia mini, is promoted as the
world’s smallest smartphone with HD (720p) video recording. The phones
measures 88 x 52 x 16mm.
The Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro, which features slide-down
QWERTY keyboard, will be available globally in select markets in the third
quarter. U.S. availability wasn’t specified, but versions were announced with 850/1900MHz
3G W-CDMA/HSPA technology, optimizing them for the AT&T network. Those
versions also incorporate the 2.1GHz band for global roaming.
Both models feature Sony
Reality display and Mobile Bravia video engine technology to enhance video
playback. A new user interface
that places up to four app icons into each corner of the screen to display a
total of 16 apps on the home screen.
Both also feature “
Facebook inside Xperia,”
which
makes Facebook immediately accessible from the most used
areas of the phone, such as the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and
calendar. The feature will be added to other Xperia phones.
The mini pro adds slide-out
keyboard, handwriting recognition, front-facing VGA videocamera for videochats, and preloaded Office Suite and
McAfee antivirus software.
Features
common to both include FM
radio with RDS, DLNA certification, 5-megapixel
camera with face detection and recognition, LED flash, smile detection,
Google Talk, stereo Bluetooth, RDS FM tuner, and Sony Ericsson
Timescape, which consolidates all types of messages with a particular person,
whether SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter or pictures.
Pricing wasn’t
announced, but color options were. They are and will be available in black,
white, dark pink and blue.
