At first glance, the Samsung Galaxy Y (hereafter “Y”) has slower response times. On the SE Xperia Mini Pro (hereafter “Xperia” or “SE”), responses were instant, so I don’t think it ever happened that I went back an activity (if you’re not an Android developer, you probably don’t know what an activity is – basically it’s a layout of buttons and other controls) before the activity was at least in loading mode.
I was also quite disappointed by the playback volume on the Y. The Xperia could play music about 30-50% louder. But at least there is no noise in the output, which would be audible mainly after all sounds are turned off. Neither on the Xperia nor on the Y.
Another thing that bothered me is that you can’t take a screenshot on the phone.
On the SE, you could take a screenshot by pressing the power button, and then there was a “take screenshot” option, which saved it to the memory card. Because of this, I never had to connect the phone to a PC – except, of course, when I wanted to work with files on the memory card.
A related issue is that the Y does not automatically connect to the system as Mass Storage.
You have to connect it to the PC and then also pull down the notification shade on the phone, choose the right option and tap the button to connect as Mass Storage.
Keyboard – Yes, Swype is nice, but nothing beats the comfortable and all-around optimal hardware keyboard on the Xperia.
On the Xperia I was able to type even very long texts, but here I wouldn’t dare. On top of that, the Y has a QWERTZ keyboard, while I use QWERTY everywhere.
TouchWiz graphical interface – it has fewer settings than the SE interface. What I liked on the SE was that you could choose from many different colors and that many more widgets were available, especially for toggling settings. On the other hand, on the Y I can turn Wi-Fi, B/T, GPS, Sound and auto-rotate on and off directly in the pull-down shade.
I also have to praise the Y for coming with less preinstalled junk – what annoyed me most on the Xperia was the antivirus! Who has ever seen such a thing? The phone’s battery would last half as long with it as without it. As for social networks, the Y has Social Hub, while the SE has Timescape. But I never used either of these features and I won’t.
Phone performance – the Xperia has much better “hardware” – it has graphics acceleration, ARM v7 instead of v6, and a clock speed 168 MHz higher. The clock speed isn’t that important; what matters is that the processor is simply a generation and a class ahead.
Moreover, I don’t know the RAM size of the Y, but I assume it will be 256 MB – if so, the Xperia has twice as much.
Battery life – I have only charged the Y once so far, because I’ve only had it for 2 days, but battery life on both is excellent compared to other Android phones and smartphones.
Camera – Photos from the Xperia were nice and sharp, and it could also record HD video. But I don’t expect the Y to produce nothing but bad photos either.
Other advantages of the Xperia:
- Notification LED
- Ambient light sensor
- LED flash that can also be used as a flashlight
- Camera shutter button – I really appreciate this on any phone
So I recommend paying CZK 700 more and buying the SE, because at that price it is simply unbeatable!! 🙂