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Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Review

Posted on 06. Feb, 2012 by Freak_c in News, Peripherals, Reviews

Ever since the launch event that I went to for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play phone, I have wanted one so badly. So when I heard that Sony had a unit for me to test and play with for two weeks I was over the moon. Putting aside my Crapberry er Blackberry for two weeks was a satisfying welcome to be honest, and here’s why.

For the past few months my Blackberry Curve 9300 has been rubbing me the wrong way. Connection issues, performance and simple the lack of apps. So I have been looking for a proper smart phone to upgrade to and the Android operating system has always caught my eye, and being an avid gamer myself the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play simply shouted out at me. An Android smart phone that literally flips into a mini PSP, genius.

The Xperia Play has taken the mobile gaming market to a whole new level with a device that can offer decent graphics, proper controls. Housing a D-pad, left and right shoulder buttons, the famous Sony square, triangle, circle and X buttons and even duel analogues. Now that’s just the gaming side of the phone the other side has full touchscreen on it’s decent 4inch screen, the Android OS and even a nice 5 Megapixel camera. So let me break it down for you and review this phone in two parts, the phone and then the gaming.

The Phone
Before I get into the pros and cons of the device it self, let me share some of the main specs for you, so that you can get a rough idea. The device basically has these main fetures:

Android OS, v2.3.4 (Gingerbread), 1 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, Internal 400 MB, 512 MB RAM, microSD, up to 32GB an 8GB included, 5 MP camera at 2592х1944 pixels, Bluetooth, Wi-fi, HSDPA, LED-backlit LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 480 x 854 pixels, 4.0 inches, 119 x 62 x 16 mm in dimensions and weighing in at a mere 175g.

Its a great looking phone as you can see in the photo below, and it actually fits nicely in your hand both in the portrait and landscape position. It can be a little tough using the phone with one hand to text and general browsing around. But honestly with a phone like this it is made for both hands. However I did find the glossy back to be a little too smooth and slippery at times and it tested my reflexes a few times as the phone would quite literally slip out of my hands. Some rubber grips would have been a nice addition and help with the gaming side of the phone.

The screen has great resolution and is crisp and clean. The touchscreen was very responsive and I never found it to be laggy. Browsing around the phone is simple and achieved with finger swipes from left to right. Camera quality extremely good and being able to record video in high quality, the only downside to the camera is that there is no zoom function for either photo or video. You can download an app that adds a digital zoom to the camera and if you got this for the camera then you need your priorities checked. Rather look at one of Sony’s cyber-shot phones.

Applications
Because this is an Android / Google phone you will have access to thousands of brilliant apps and games from the Android market. The phone ships with a fair helping of apps already to get you started, Google music player, Google search, Facebook, Twitter, PlayNow service, and many more. The amount of Free applications that offer, functionality, productivity, games and just plain random is quite staggering. Remember I’m coming from the Blackberry app store which had a total of three useful apps and even those were pointless.  With the Xperia Play I had a calorie counter app that tracked and managed my food and diet intake, giving me all dietary details for every type of food, suggested recipes based on my preferences and even better still, it was linked into the local fast food and supermarket chains offering you dietary details of menu and products sold at those chains. I had a great alarm clock app, monitoring bandwitdh, battery and apps. Not to mention the brilliant Google Goggles. There’s just so many options available for.

The Gaming
Ok so now to the important bits, how does the phone hold up with the gaming section. As this is one of the main features of the phone I will give it an A+. The games that are made for the device work really well and even some of the other games. The library of games is also pretty impressive with some of the big developers and publishers releasing games for the device. Just to mention some names: Sony Computer Entertainment, Digital Chocolate, Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Namco Bandai Networks and PopCap.

There are four games which are preloaded on the device for you to test it out. These include FIFA 10, Star Battalion, Sims 3, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Tetris and even Crash Bandicoot. The only problem is that you have to download the game files via Wi-fi only, you wouldn’t want to do it over 3G as some of the games weight it at +-500mb. The prices of the games are extremely reasonable and its very easy to browse new and access your current games with a pre-loaded application. All of the titles have been optimised for game play on the Xperia PLAY.

As mentioned before one thing that I would have preferred is that the back could have used some rubber grips because the glossy finish can get slippery. With regards to the actual game controls they all work really well, even the touch sensitive duel analogues. These take a little bit of getting use to but once you figure out to only use slight gestures with your thumbs they begin to feel like second nature and a PS3 controller. Running around in FIFA on the Xperia Play is just as good as running around in FIFA on a PS3.

With the Adreno GPU graphics processor which delivers silky smooth 60fps play-back makes the gaming even that much more sweeter. The graphics that are produced make you forget that you are playing on a mobile phone thinking its a PSP until that SMS or phone call interrupts you. I never had trouble using the phone in the sun as the screen displayed bright enough and as for sound the rings and media game volume is quite substantial but if you want your privacy you can always plug in a set of head phones for some extra kick.

Conclusion
If you looking for some great or better mobile gaming as well a a full featured smart phone then I highly recommend the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. The phone offers so much gaming and with the Android operating system the phone there are even more possibilities for business, productivity, learning, video, music and web browsing. It’s such a pity that I had to return the phone but rest assured once my current contract is up I will throwing away my Crapberry and heading straight for this phone. Simply excellent.

9/10

A huge thank you to Sony for allowing me to review the phone.

Tags: Review, Sony Ericsson, sony ericsson xperia play, Xperia Play