I had been using Canon EOS-400D for over 4 years. It had been serving me faithfully. Unfortunately, recently, the built-in flash was not functioning properly and it was too expensive to get it repair. As such, I need to get a new camera to replace it.

I was looking at Canon EOS-60D, a semi-professional camera and EOS-600D, an entry level camera. Having been using an entry level camera for so many years, it would be fairly logical for me to upgrade to a semi-professional camera, rather than getting another entry level camera.

I did a comparison between the 2 cameras.

There are a number of technical similarities, which are 18MByte effective picture pixels, 3″ fully articulated LCD screen, up to 12800 ISO and many more.

Being a semi-professional camera, EOS-60D has the advantages of faster shutter speed of 1/8000 second (which I hardly used), shoulder LCD screen, environmentally sealed body and at least double the battery life.

All these benefits are more than enough to lure me to pay slightly more to get the EOS-60D.

Amazingly, the final reason which made me go towards the entry level EOS-600D camera was physical instead of technical.

I reflected my experience of going around with my camera and other stuffs. I prefer using a sling camera bag instead of a backpack camera bag due to the ease of taking out the camera. Soon, I found that I was having shoulder ache because of carrying so much heavy stuff.

The EOS-60D is a much heavier and bigger camera than the EOS-600D. Considering the weight factor, I finally decided to purchase the EOS-600D instead of upgrading.

Maybe someday in the future, I may get a semi-professional camera. But there is the future.

Purchasing a Blu-Ray Player was not really an easy task for me. There were many inexpensive Blu-Ray Players out there on the market. But I had other thoughts.

My current set-up was a 5.1 channels DVD home theatre system. There was no HDMI input/output on the home theatre system. My LCD TV set has only one HDMI input and it was utilized. Neither the TV set nor the home theatre system has S/PDIF connection.

Because of these limitations, I did not want to just get any Blu-Ray player. On top of the video quality, another reason to get Blu-Ray was the sound quality. I want to enjoy the surround sounds from the video as well. My current setup simply could not satisfy my requirements with just a Blu-Ray player.

I decided to replace my current DVD Home Theatre System with a Blu-Ray Home Theatre System.

I also put other factors into consideration. One was if the system has HDMI inputs. Since my TV set had only one HDMI input and it was utilized, I would want my new system to have HDMI input for my existing devices. I did not wish to change my TV set yet.

The other factor was that, if it could be used to watch YouTube video. Watching YouTube video was sort of the trend now, especially most of the newer models of Blu-Ray Home Theatre system had this function.

After a search, I decided on the Sony BDVE380 5.1-Channel High-Definition Blu-ray Disc Player/DVD Disc Home theater System. It is a 5.1 Channel Blu-Ray Player with 2 HDMI inputs and allows me to watch YouTube videos directly. Somehow, it just fitted into my requirements.

Now, I can enjoy Star Wars Blu-Ray, my existing devices and YouTube Video on this system.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab had a 3 Megapixel camera with a LED flash. I had not used the Galaxy Tab before, so I was not sure how the camera performed in this low light situation.

I was definitely sure, at the moment, it was the camera with the biggest LCD screen, at least to the man using it to the photos.

According to Sony Ericsson’s website, the benefits of updating to Android 2.1 are as follows:

1. Send files via Bluetooth
2. New additional applications will be available in Market
3. New Back up and restore application
4. Multiple Google accounts
5. Improved screen lock

There was a note that after the upgrade to Android 2.1, it would not be possible to go back to Android 1.6. Anyway, I wanted to update.

There was a page on the Sony Ericssion webpage telling us the steps on how to update.

According to the recommendation, I would need to backup my data. The original backup application in the phone was not working as expected. It kept telling me to insert flash memory.

An update to the backup software was available. I had to install the new backup software twice, because I did not disable the feature to disallow non-Android Market applications.

After I had done my back-up, I connected my X-10 Mini Pro to my PC. According to the instructions, the PC Companion would automatically detect and provide instructions on how to proceed. However, the PC Companion indicated that my phone software was the latest. Finally, I clicked on the update phone option in the “Support Zone”. From there, I selected “Repair”. At this point onwards, I just followed the instructions. This process took me about an hour.

After the updates, I did a restore. The phone would re-download all my new applications. This took a while to complete the process.

So how was the new Android 2.1?

The look was a bit different. I needed a little time to get used to it. Despite the Back-up and restore, I still need to manually re-keying the settings, like my Wi-Fi connection details. And all my saved data in the game “Angry Birds” was gone. I needed to re-play the game.

So far, I do like the new Facebook application. It provided more functions and features as compared to the previous version.

I am still in the mist of getting used to the Android 2.1. I believe soon I would be using some of the new features.

I tried a number of ways, like clear data, checking all the settings, however in vain.

Luckily, I found the solution to this at this site. – http://talk.sonyericsson.com/message/21791#21791

After trying out this solution, it worked and I can continue to download new Applications for my X10 Mini Pro Phone.

The phone was very small, even small than my palm. This was a contrast to most other touch screen phone with much bigger screen. The only thing was that it was quite thick due to the key pad.

Contact List

One of the first thing I did was to export my contact list list to the new phone. I had a habit of synchronizing my PC address book with my phone’s one. In the past, I would do so using the given cable or Bluetooth.

Suddenly, I realized that, with an Android phone, process had changed.

There were two options with X10 Mini Pro. First, Sony Ericsson provided storage space in their servers for us to store our address book and calendar. The other options was to make use of Google Gmail. Of course, this was an Android phone, the operating system was from Google. I decided to opt for the latter one.

There was a software provided by Google to sync my Outlook contact with my Gmail. Somehow, unfortunately, I could not manage to get that to work well. So, I had to do it in the manual way.

This took me a bit of time, exporting from my PC address book and importing to the Google Gmail Contact list. Good thing was, it was only an one time task.

After I had setup my phone for my Gmail Account, I soon found that my phone address book was updated.

Calendar

I did not expect that the calendar part was much easier and faster than the Contact List. I simply download another software from Google. This software would automatically sync my Outlook Calendar with my Google Calendar. This would in term sync my Google Calendar with my X10 Mini Pro Calendar.

One thing to take note that, I had to enable the Calendar Sync under the “Phone Setting”, “Data Sync” for it to periodically sync the calendar.

Phone Calls

This was the most basic function of a mobile phone. Making phone call was easy. It took my a while to get use of the receiving phone call.

Like most touch screen based phone, I had to slide on the screen to answer a call on the X10 Mini Pro. When my finger was a bit wet, the screen might not be as responsive as I hoped for. It took me a few sliding to answer a call.

Overall, as I got used to my new Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro, I began to enjoy the convenience it provided on the basic functions. I just need to update my phone, and my Google Gmail contact or Calendar would be updated and also the other way round.

Soon I began to explore more functions of this Android Phone.

I had been pondering, if I should get this Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro Android phone. Or if I should get other Android phone. My main concern was the functions which I had been enjoying with my previous phone – Sony Ericsson C902.

Sony Ericsson C902 was a fantastic phone – 5Mbyte camera, slim design, functionality as a modem for my laptop etc. The reasons for replacing this phone were to a faulty button and I needed even more functions. An Android phone seemed to fit in.

I usually used a mobile over 2 years before changing new one, so I would wish to check carefully first. Before buying, I had been comparing the phones’ features.

I knew Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro had these advantage over most other Android phones of the same price:
- 5 Mega pixel Camera
- A QWERTY Keypad
- Built in radio

At the same time, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro was using Android OS 1.6 compared to most other Android phones using Android OS 2.0 and above. That means that I cannot share my Internet Connection with other devices. As far as I knew, Sony Ericsson would be releasing a firmware upgrade soon.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro also has a smaller screen size compared to most other touch screen phone. But I think I can live with it.

Jumping from C902 into an Android phone would mean, I would gain much more functions. There would be tons of Applications available in the Android Market. I would need to explore what were available. I can also make use of the available Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet, rather than just the 3G Mobile data only.

At the same time, I would lose out in term of using my phone as a modem for my laptop.

Further much considering, I finally made the jump and got my Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro.