The new Xperia isn’t Sony Ericsson’s first venture into the world of smartphones, but with this new handset, they certainly ‘Play’ to win.
By Rob Gleeson
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is one of the most highly anticipated smart phones to come onto the market in recent times and it didn’t let me down. On paper, the phone has it all – Android meets Playstation and a media hub with a super fast processor to back it all up. Let me tell you, it’s every bit as impressive in the flesh.
Granted, the Xperia Play is one of the biggest phones I’ve had in my pocket and it does run the risk of someone saying “is that a smartphone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”; but no-one really minds a nice piece of equipment eh?
One of the first things you’ll notice is the weight of the phone. Weighing in at 175g, the Play is a little on the heavy side but surely that’s to be expected?
You need to have a firm grip of the phone to ensure the best gaming experience and while this might put some people off, it affirms to me that it’s a quality piece of equipment and there’s some serious beef inside.
Let’s face it – if you want to really experience portable gaming, you need buttons
That beef comes in the form of a 1GHz Scorpion processor, 5 MP camera with a LED flash, 512mb of RAM and let’s not forget the Android 2.3 operating system. Granted, these are all pretty standard specs for a smartphone, so what makes it stand out?
The obvious answer – the Playstation partnership and branding. At launch, the Play comes with 6 Playstation-certified games pre-installed, with Fifa 10 the stand out title.
The Play’s controls are handled via a slide out-style gaming control deck that opens smoothly thanks to the spring-assisted slider. On this gaming deck the controls vary from touch-sensitive analogue pads found in the middle of the deck, with directional buttons to the left and the ever-recognisable Playstation buttons to the right. In addition to this, the left and right ‘trigger’ buttons can be found on the side of the device and they fit in extremely well and are very easy to use.
As gaming on smart phones go, the Play is definately a step in the right direction. The phone is oozing with potential and it shouldn’t take too much time before we see lad’s favourites like Call of Duty and Tiger Woods available on future installments of the Play.
BATTERY: You can play on the ‘Play’ for up to 5 hours and 35 minutes. I imagine that realistically the battery life will depend on how long you actually use the phone functions of the device along with the gaming aspect. Up to 413 hours on stand by and 6 hours talk time is what we’re told.
CONNECTIVITY: Browse the Internet, as with any smartphone, to your heart’s content as the phone is WiFi enabled. Bluetooth and USB connectivity all standard.
MEDIA: The Play has a 5 MP camera with an LED flash with auto focus and geo-tagging too. There is a 4 inch LED-backlit LCD capacitive touchscreen with touch sensitive gaming controls as well.
STORAGE: 512mb of RAM with a 8GB SD card included, which can be expanded to 32GB – something you will probably need to do for downloading more games.
PROCESSOR: A 1GHz Scorpion processor with an Adreno 205 GPU gaming processor to ensure that both gaming and phone functions are fast and reliable.
OPERATING SYSTEM: It’s like Android and Playstation always worked together, the amalgamation seems so effortless. The Play is running the latest version of Android, 2.3 (Gingerbread), which complements the Playstation side of the phone perfectly.
Like I said before, the Play is bursting with possibilities and potential. While this is the first in what I’m sure will be a long and successful line of gaming smart phones, it has set a bench mark for the future. The only bad thing I can say is that fellas – you’ll probably get an earful from the other half for playing it so much! All I can say is let the games begin.
Rob Gleeson is co-founder of Smartphone Republic
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