When the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play entered the market, it generated a lot of discussion. Xperia play is a combination of an Android 2.4 Gingerbread based Xperia phone and Sony’s handheld gaming device ‘PlayStation’.
Naturally, it prompted the users to expect a Playstattion like performance from this device. Unfortunately, the Android games available for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play do not have any exclusivity attached to them.
Sony Ericsson has managed to fit in a four inch display, which works just fine when users are playing indoors. But the screen does not give the desired gaming experience outdoors. Due to the curved design, the phone sets itself nicely into the hands of the users. The smoothness of the sliding mechanism is also commendable; sometimes it opens unintentionally too!
Users would be very glad to discover that the SIM card and microSD cards can be accessed with no need to remove the battery at all.
The device has been created for entertainment and it reflects in the product. Take the speakers for example, which are way better than other phones. The RAM available for games is 400 MB out of total 512 MB, which is okay but isn’t sufficient for the hard core gamers who are always hankering for more.
It has 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chip that gives more power to the users compared to Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X that have use dual core systems on a chip.
The plastic used to build the outside of the device could have been better. Once you go inside the device, apart from the trademark PlayStation game controller, rest of the device is more like other Android phones.
Xperia Play runs on Android Gingerbread 2.3.2. Gaming on this phone gives a feel of PlayStation, and the graphics, though not intense, work well for the users. Use of the touchpad needs some learning, be ready for it. The problem is, most of the Sony gamers are used to Analog joysticks, so the touchpad might feel a bit difficult for them to use.
Battery life is not that great, but if you consider one days worth of (on and off) gaming as adequate then the battery works just fine for you. The software extras used by Sony Ericsson on the Xperia Play are going against the battery, and it is something Sony Ericsson can easily take care of. For gaming, the phone works well for users but in endurance tests, other phones with a better battery life may end up doing well.