Gamers wanting to take their Sony PlayStation experience with them wherever they go need look no further than the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone.
After years of discussions between Sony and Ericsson around developing a smartphone designed for gamers, the manufacturer has released the Xperia Play, bringing a Sony PSP flavour to its latest Xperia range of handsets.
Dubbed the 'PlayStation phone', it's a bit chunky, but feels solid and smooth, and flips up to reveal a mini game controller fitted onto the device, with buttons resembling a Sony PSP.
PlayStation phone
The D pad and two touch controls feel comfortable when playing games, and a PS3 gamer will immediately recognise the look and feel while gaming. However, users with slightly larger hands might struggle with pressing the small buttons during fast-paced gaming.
Xperia Play merges a gamepad into an Android smartphone, and all the benefits one would see in other Android-based Xperia smartphones are evident, such as social networking apps, e-mail, Google Latitude, Google Maps, Track ID, and access to app downloads via Android's Marketplace.
It also comes with an Xperia Play app that enables users to access, manage and download games unique to the Xperia Play. Some of these include Need for Speed Shift, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Dead Space, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and Fifa 10.
I played Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior as well as Crash Bandicoot, and the gaming experience was excellent. The graphics are in high-definition, and the performance speeds are top notch. The Xperia Play is a challenger to the Nintendo 3DS in terms of high performance and 3D mobile gaming.
Intuitive, customisable home screen
The Gingerbread 2.3.2 home interface is intuitive and familiar to the Xperia range of smartphones. The home screen is populated with widgets and apps such as voice search, Flash Player, office suite, calendar, gallery and video player. It was easy to drag and drop widgets and switch between home screen panels. The smartphone also comes with TimeScape, a useful Android widget that lists all calls, messages and social media updates under one interface.
The pull-down notification feature lets users view running apps and current downloads. The user interface is smooth and very customisable. Apps can also be organised in categories, such as most-used, recently installed and alphabetical.
The contact book synchronises with Facebook and Google Talk contacts, and lets users choose how they would like to get hold of a contact, whether by voice calling, instant messaging, SMSing or e-mail.
Need for speed
On the processor side, Qualcomm's optimised Snapdragon with a 1GHz CPU and embedded Adreno CPU graphics processor is fast and packs a punch, delivering high-definition graphics. Web browsing was a pleasure, and the intuitive touch-screen makes it easy to flip between Web pages.
Battery life was slightly disappointing; the Play comes with less battery life in comparison to its Xperia cousins. I found I had to charge the device every 13 hours or so with minimum activity, and playing games drained the battery rapidly.
Sony Ericsson cut down on certain features one would see in its other Xperia smartphones, such as the camera. The Xperia Play comes with a 5MP camera, which did take good photographs, particularly with the image stabiliser feature; but for this price range, one would expect better quality. However, it's important to state that the Play is a gaming smartphone rather than a multimedia phone.
Mobile gaming
Video playback was impressive and sound quality was high. The call quality was crystal-clear, as the device comes with a noise shield that blocks background noise. In order to receive calls, the user has to make a finger swipe action on the touch-screen; this also prevents calls being accidentally cut off.
Overall, the Xperia Play is suited to the gaming enthusiast who likes to social network, send instant messages, manage photographs, record videos on the go, and listen to music.
Share