Three's a crowd
3 is the first UK mobile operator we're aware of to stock the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro, which we first saw unveiled at MWC last February. It's also adding the HTC Wildfire.
Both of these Android handsets can be viewed as ‘lite' versions of top-end smartphones from the two handset-makers - the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and the HTC Desire, respectively. In that respect, they're positioned as more affordable options for people looking to get into the Android smartphone game.
So we're not really sure what 3 is playing at with the contracts for these two newbies, requiring as it does at least a £30 per month, 24-month contract before it will part with either of them. To put this into context, you can get a Desire from Vodafone for £30 per month and an X10 Mini (no QWERTY) for £20 per month.
Even 3 itself offers the Desire for a mere four quid a month more than the Wildfire. Is there something we're overlooking? And yes, Sony Ericsson is still stuck on Android 1.6.
Sylvia Chind, head of branded devices at 3, said: "We try and offer phones that appeal to all our customers across the board. 97% of the traffic on our network is from data so the HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro, which both offer rich internet content at a reasonable price, sit perfectly in our range and offer our customers exactly what they want.
"On our newly launched One Plan, with a sizable 1GB of data and built in extras like Spotify, means that customers can make the most of the every-day tools like Google Maps, Spotify, Skype, Twitter and Facebook that are at the heart of the Android experience."
