It’s the mini smartphone showdown!

The HTC Wildfire and Xperia X10 Mini are the first two phones to seriously tackle the challenge of bringing the smartphone experience in a shrunk down size. There is no doubting that both are great phones, but now Simbasics puts them head to head to see who is best mini smartphone.

Dimensions
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
106.8 x 60.4 x 12 mm Not as tiny as some compact phones of the past have been, but compared to most of today’s handsets, the Wildfire can still be classed as pint-size. It is beautifully slim and definitely feels small in the hand.		83 x 50 x 16 mm A truly tiny phone. The slightly boxy shape and quite fat body for its size actually make the phone feel a bit larger than it is, but it gives you a bit more to hold onto and makes it feel more solid.
I will have to scored this a tie as although the Xperia X10 Mini is quite a lot smaller in both height and width, the extra slimness of the Wildfire offsets its slightly larger body.
Tie		Tie
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Display
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors,  240 x 320 pixels, 3.2 inches The screen dominates the front of the HTC Desire and is very vivid and extremely responsive.		TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, 240 x 320 pixels, 2.55 inches. The Xperia X10 Mini flirts with the smallest possible screen size before smartphone activity becomes tricky. Occasionally web browsing becomes a bit of a squintfest on such a small screen, but it still has big plusses in clarity and vividness.
While these two are equals for quality of both display and touch response, the Wildfire has a much bigger screen and so is an easy winner here. Almost a whole inch bigger, you can really tell the difference as when browsing on the Wildfire you don’t feel like you are looking at a mini smartphone while on the Xperia X10 mini you definitely do.
Winner		Loser
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Engine Room
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
Qualcomm MSM 7225 528 MHz The processor is adequate, but not great. The 1GHz snapdragon on the Desire makes everything very fluid, and the 528 MHz found on this isn’t noticeably bad, but you will have to put up with some slowdown.		Qualcomm MSM7227 600MHz The Xperia X10 Mini processor is very impressive. Sony Ericsson have scaled down the work it has to do, so this little powerhouse will speed through just about everything you do.
The Wildfire takes the loss here probably because HTC have been too ambitious in trying to pack as much of a regular smartphone into their mini handset. The Xperia X10 actually has a better processor anyway, and because Sony Ericsson have shrunk everything down on the phone, it more than copes with everything you can throw at it.
Loser		Winner
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Battery
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
Stand-by: Up to 480 h (2G) / Up to 690 h (3G) Talk time: Up to 7 h 20 min (2G) / Up to 8 h 10 min (3G) While HTC have sacrificed things to an extent in their processor, they reap the rewards of a slightly underpowered phone with its impressive battery life. This phone will just keep on going, if only they could harness this in the Wildfire’s bigger brothers.		Stand-by: Up to 285 h (2G) / Up to 360 h (3G) Talk time: Up to 4 h (2G) / Up to 3 h 30 min (3G) For a compact phone that is supposed to be focussed on portability, the battery life on the Xperia X10 Mini is definitely a let down. You would expect a smartphone lite to have better battery life, but you won’t get much better in this than you can in the likes of the Desire and Xperia X10.
The Wildfire gets an easy win here as it far outlasts the Xperia X10 Mini. The marathonlike battery life on the Wildfire is as impressive as the Xperia X10 Mini’s poorness is disappointing.
Winner		Loser
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Imaging
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, Smile detection, geo-tagging The camera on the Wildfire has an impressive array of options, offering a similar choice as you will find on most basic digital cameras. Quality is very good, although you will quite often be nicely surprised as the display doesn’t tend to do your photos justice and makes them look a bit shabby and pixelated. An all round good camera.		5 MP, 2560х1920 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, Geo-tagging 5 Megapixels doesn’t sound like much these days, but it is more than enough to get quality shots every time. What makes the Xperia X10 Mini stand out is that Sony Ericsson have customised the UI to make full use of the ‘four corners’ feature. You have the various usual camera features such as zooming, flash etc. in the four corners which makes the camera very quick and easy to use. Quality is extremely impressive, especially closeup shots.
I was expecting very little from the cameras on these phones, as a decent camera would be the last thing on the manufacturer’s minds in shrinking down their smartphones. But both a really great cameras and match each other for both quality and user friendliness.
Tie		Tie
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Storage
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
512 MB internal, expandable up to 32GB (comes with 2GB) The Wildfire comes with the standard HTC package of storage both internally and the expandable capability.		128MB internal, expandable up to 16GB (comes with 2GB) Although you can’t max it out to the usual 32GB, 16GB should still be enough to satisfy most of your storage needs. As it comes with just 128MB internal though, you will quickly need to start using the supplied SD card.
Offering much more internal space and twice as much expandable capability, the Wildfire wins this round easily. Although huge amounts of space aren’t the be all and end all, devices as compact as this can viably replace your mp3 player, so having the extra space on the Wildfire could well be a dealbreaker if you want to load it up with all your music.
Winner		Loser
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Software
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
Android OS, v2.1 The Android OS is extremely easy to use, especially with the HTC Sense UI layered on top. The customisable homescreens mean that you can adapt your phone to maximise efficiency with the range of available widgets and shortcuts to put on your screens. An update to Froyo should be with the Wildfire by the end of the year		Android OS 1.6 Although the older version of Android is still more than capable and remains an excellent user experience, it remains a huge disappointment when other Android phones are being upgraded to 2.2 that Sony Ericsson phones still remain stuck in the 1.6 dark ages. The ‘four corners’ UI is very intuitive and makes accessing the key applications very easy.
This should be a tie, because they are both Android powered phones with excellent UIs layered on top. However, HTC seem to be favoured by Google and so come with the later version of Android and have a further upgrade promised later this year. The Wildfire wins because Froyo could well improve this phone in many of the other areas compared here.
Winner		Loser
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
Verdict
HTC Wildfire		SE Xperia X10 Mini
Winner		Loser
GET THE WILDFIRE NOW		GET THE XPERIA X10 MINI NOW
First off, these are both excellent phones. I was a bit doubtful over whether the exciting concept of a shunk-down-smartphone would acutally work in practice, but both of these deliver exactly the smartphone lite experience you would hope for. They are both very attractive to look at and small enough to feel compact without feeling fiddly to hold and operate. As they both have Android brains, day-to-day usage is always a pleasure. However, the extra storage capacity, screen size and the potential of a widening gap in the Android OS versions mean that the Wildfire just edges it. You would do well to get either of these phones, but if you want me to tell you which one you should buy, then go for the Wildfire.