Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro drops by the office, has a GreenHeart

The Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro stopped by our office today and we have some initial impressions to share, plus an unboxing and hands-on video. The petite messenger is about the same size as its predecessor, but packs a lot more punch.

Standing at just 92 x 53 x 18 mm the Xperia mini pro packs a 3″ HVGA screen, a big improvement over the 2.55″ QVGA of the original. And performance has been improved quite a lot too, thanks to the 1GHz CPU and the 512MB of RAM.

The box of the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro packs the usual stuff plus a few extras. We were pleased to see the energy-efficient GreenHeart charger, which couples with the microUSB cable to charge the phone. There’s also a nice one-piece headset and a 2GB microSD card preinstalled.

Another GreenHeart-themed item is the white carrying pouch made of perforated cloth. There’s also a screen protector inside the box to you help protect your precious new Xperia mini pro and a small plastic tool to get the air bubbles out. And a small cloth will let you keep the face of the smartphone spotlessly clean at all times.

As for the phone itself, we got the White version and it’s a real looker. The plastic feels smooth and nice, but the phone is quite heavy for a gadget this tiny – it weighs 136g.

The four-corner UI of the homescreen has been polished and with the extra processing power everything goes very smoothly. Check out the video to see the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro in action.

One of the things about the updated four-corner UI we liked is that each corner can act as a folder too, not just a single shortcut. You can put up to four shortcuts in each corner, bringing the total of instantly accessible app shortcuts on the desktop to 16.

There are other things too, but more on that later. We’ve started work on a full review of the phone, so stay tuned.