Last year Sony Ericsson released a rather interesting device called the X10 Mini. It came in two variants, the plain jane X10 which was a typical all screen smartphone, and the X10 Mini Pro, which featured a slide out QWERTY keyboard. What made these devices unique was their screen size, both measuring just 2.55 inches across. In an age where device manufacturers are pumping out 4.3 inch and even 4.5 inch devices, these two handsets provided a breathe of fresh air. They weren’t perfect mind you. The camera was a bit rubbish, Sony Ericsson created a completely custom tailored user interface so you could even use the damn thing, and they both shipped with Android 1.6 onboard. Now it’s time to refresh the X10 family and a few images out of China show that a successor to the X10 Mini Pro is not only in the pipeline, but it’s pretty damn near production ready. Internally it’s known as the SK17i, codename Mango.
How large will the screen be, what resolution will it pack, we don’t yet know, but we do know that Android 2.3 is onboard and it looks like it hasn’t been tweaked too much. That’s a good thing since Sony Ericsson’s Android skins tend to kill performance and actually make navigating around Android a little more difficult than it should be.
Now if you’re into smaller screen devices then you should also be aware of the Palm Veer. Announced in February, the Veer has a 2.6 inch screen, is smaller than a credit card, and no thicker than a deck of cards. No, it doesn’t run Android, instead it has Palm’s webOS on there, but as long as you’ve got your GPS, email, and Facebook in your pocket, what more do you need? You’re not going to have a pleasurable gaming experience on that thing. That’s not the point of these types of devices.