Micromax has named this device on a famous Dutch painter who had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art, but we do not expect such a far-reaching influence on the mobile phone design in 21st century, but having said that it certainly a trump card up its sleeve.

With the X450 Van Gogh, Micromax supplies an integrated Bluetooth handsfree kit, which not just sits at the back of the phone, it also charges using the phones battery, eliminating the need for a second charger to charge the Bluetooth handsfree. It also eliminates the possibility of losing this kit as you will always be able to carry it without it being one more thing to carry.

The rest of the phone is a standard dual SIM bar phone from Micromax, no revolutionary features, glitz or glam. To add to the beauty, Micromax supplies two backcover – black and yellow in colour with a mat feel finish.

Design wise, the phone is regular bar phone with multitap keypad with well place keys that give decent feedback. The 2.6 inch screen is a standard fare with 262 colour QVGA (320X240) resolution. The Bluetooth cradle for the handsfree kit adds bulk to the device and also aids the grip of the phone without adding much weight.

The back of the phone has good looking curves which look attractive in both black and yellow. The Bluetooth kit has a glossy finish to its back that breaks the mat finish monotony of the back cover, making the handset look more modern. The glossy finish is carried in the front as well. The camera is on the back top left corner.

Apart from the front keypad, the phone is devoid of any other physical keys – there is neither volume rocker nor a camera button.

Bluetooth Kit

The Bluetooth kit is the main attraction of this phone which differentiates it from others. The kit sits bang in the middle of the upper back side of the phone. You will need to use your nails to pluck out the Bluetooth kit from its cradle.

The pairing is easy and, the good thing is that, can be done with any other phone. Once you the kit runs out of charge, all you need to do is to put it back in the cradle and it will charge itself. And while you have put this in the cradle, it continues to work, so you just need to take it out when you get a call. The battery backup of the kit is decent with 4-5 hours of talk time.

Other features

The phone is a dual SIM phone with 8GB expandable memory through microSD card, a 2.0 Megapixel camera, 3.5 mm Audio Jack and a pre-installed Opera Mini browser. It supports GPRS and application downloads.
The 2.4 inch screen is not really very high Resolution but good enough for a product in this price bracket. The user interface has nothing special to talk about but using it is simple. There is a customisable go to option, which directly takes you to frequently used functions in the menu, taking away the pain of navigation. Other regular features like FM, calculator, calendar etc are all there.

Performance

The phone’s performance is as expected from this range of products. There were no network issues whatsoever, in-fact the GPRS reception is better than what I normally get on my other phones.

The supplied wired in-ear handset feels much better built than the rest of the phone, and the sound clarity matches the built quality. The external stereo speakers are also loud and clear.
The radio reception had no issues either. Media player which plays both audio and video is a well sorted one with easy navigation and playback.

The 2.0 mega pixel camera unit is nothing much to talk about; it’s good only for occasional snaps when you do not any other option. The file support also has nothing to complain about. The battery backup is good for two days low to medium level use with the phone’s 1000mAH unit.

Verdict

I would give ten on ten to Micromax for this new concept &#151 placing the Bluetooth into a cradle at the back of the phone that makes it handy to use as and when one needs it.
However the rest of the phone is a very standard piece of hardware. Also, the quality of the handsfree should have been slightly higher as right now there are times when there are too many interferences, the voice starts to echo though it is not always there it is an annoyance nonetheless.

The phone has a price tag of Rs 3,999 (MRP) but may be available for around Rs 3,400-3,500, which is definitely attractive.

When the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play entered the market, it was the most discussed handset among hardcore gamers and mobile enthusiasts. Xperia Play is a combination of an Android 2.4 Gingerbread based Xperia phone and Sony’s handheld gaming device ‘PlayStation’.

In order to make good use of its PlayStation certification, the Play features a slide-out gaming pad with controls that attempts at replicating PlayStation controller, including two touch-sensitive pads in place of the usual Analog sticks.

Look and feel

The first thing you notice when you pick up the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is its huge size (119mm x 62mm x 16mm). From gamming perspective Play fit comfortably in the hand, but for communication purpose, I felt like it was bigger than it had to be for the task.

The front of the Play sports a 4 inch touch screen (that supports a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels) above four physical keys for the standard Android functions of back, home, menu, and search. The screen itself is decent but it could have been made a bit more responsive to touch as well, as sometimes a user has to do multiple presses or swipes before the screen would register the input. Also, display works just fine when users are playing indoors. But, the screen does not give the desired gaming experience in bright sunlight.

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.

Playstation

Sony Ericsson has added a custom PlayStation Pocket widget that leads to your PlayStation games and lets you surf more games. Loading times for the games aboard the Play was quite decent, but hardcore gamers might find it too slow. As far as the gaming pad goes, certain functions worked well, while others could have been better.

The four-way directional pad and the square, triangle, circle, and X buttons worked nicely and were responsive during game play. The touchpads that are designed to replicate the analog sticks were a bit sluggish. I found it hard to use them in games and found them to do not 100 per cent accurate.

The shoulder keys (the L and R trigger keys) are placed on the top side of the phone, when held horizontally. They are big and are perfectly positioned under the forefingers. Overall, they are very comfortable to use and were responsive too during gaming. The actual slider mechanism of the gamepad feels solid and sturdy, and should withstand a good amount of use and pressure.

The first game we tried to play on this was Crash Bandicoot. It makes use of all of the hardware controls and is a good way to experience gaming on the Xperia Play.

Hardware

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. Not many phones make it that convenient.

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.

Camera

This phone comes with two cameras, the primary camera is of 5 Megapixel resolution with flash and the secondary camera is front facing with VGA resolution. Video calling on 3G is possible on Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. The camera supports various features such as Geo Tagging and Auto Focus and also comes with image stabiliser.

On the still imaging front, the camera performed well compared to video recording. Options on Sony Ericsson’s custom software are a little limited but you can adjust exposure, white balance, and focusing mode, which should still be sufficient for most users.
Especially commendable among those controls is the Macro mode on the Play, which allowed us to get really good close up and portrait shots of the subject.
On the downside, the Play’s camera struggles to focus in low light and it lacks a dedicated physical shutter button. Sony Ericsson could have used the right shoulder key to double up as one.

Battery

The 1500mAh battery is rated by the manufacturer at 6.25 hours Talk time in 3G mode, which can be extended to more than eight hours if you turn off the 3G radio.

Our experience with Battery life was good. When we used the Play for just calling purpose we got an 8 hour battery life. And when we used it for continues gaming with sound, we got a decent battery backup or around 2 hours.

Connectivity

Connectivity options in Play are Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, micro USB, GPRS, DLNA and EDGE. But, the phone lacks an HDMI port to connect the gaming-oriented handset to a big screen HDTV, considering DLNA has still not gained popularity.

Verdict

The Xperia Play is a good buy if you are looking for a phone which can double up as a gaming device. It is a smartphone worth having.

Play is not just another smartphone; it is in a league of its own and in a gaming ecosystem, it’s pretty unchallenged by other handset players.

The only thing the gamers should watch out for is when Sony will come out with exclusive games for the Xperia Play smartphone.