14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Sony Ericsson plans to release its Xperia mini and mini pro Android-based smartphones in India some time this week.
While the Xperia mini pro has been spotted at Flipkart where it is available for pre-order for Rs. 15,099 (about $340), the Xperia mini is now showing as available on Sony Ericsson India's website.
Even though the price is yet to be determined, the Xperia mini might be available for around Rs. 14,000 (about $315).
According to Flipkart, the Xperia mini pro is due to hit shelves in the fifth week of July, which might suggest that Sony Ericsson has scheduled both Xperia devices for this week.
Android fans living in India will probably be happy about the phones' affordable prices, but this is somewhat to be expected as Sony Ericsson has recently dropped the prices of some of its high-end smartphones, including the Xperia PLAY.
Although both phones feature almost the same specs sheet, it appears that the Xperia mini pro targets business customers and heavy texters, as it offers a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
Powered by Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) platform, both smartphones are equipped with a single core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1GHz and complemented by an Adreno 205 GPU.
Both smartphones pack 512 MB of RAM and microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB, 2GB memory card included), but the Xperia mini features only 320 MB of internal memory, while the Xperia mini pro has 400 MB storage.
Furthermore, Xperia mini and mini pro come with a 3.0-inch LED-backlit LCD, capacitive touchscreen with 16 million colors support and 320 x 480 pixels resolution, based on Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine.
Users can take advantage of multiple connectivity options, including Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA function, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and microUSB, as well as GPS with A-GPS support and digital compass.
