Sony Ericsson Xperia Play - Revolutionizing Mobile Gaming?

Mobile gaming is a big part of the smartphone agenda, or even the lower end segment. The Xperia Play was all set to revolutionize the mobile gaming industry and I was looking forward to it doing so. But I’m sure after the preview; most of you are probably waiting to see if it actually does just that. So after a full week of gaming and testing here’s a more in depth look at the Xperia Play aka the Playstation Phone.

Form Factor
Here’s a quick recap of the design - It’s fitted with a 4.0-inch LED backlit touchscreen with a hi-res mobile display sporting a 480 x 854 pixel resolution and 16 million colors. A Slide out gamepad with game keys just like you’d find on a standard PS controller of the PSP itself with touch sensitive navigation pads instead of joysticks is added on. Left and Right corner keys are also available. Volume keys are placed in between these keys. A 3.5mm handsfree (that somehow only seemed to work with a Sony Ericsson kit) is placed on the right above the micro USB 2.0 port.

A little bulky

Although, Sony Ericsson provides an 8GB microSD card (hot swap under the rear panel)  with the Play, it might have been a good idea (considering the price as well) to throw in scientifically more internal storage. It’s a bit of a heavy device at 175g and at 16mm in depth the Play is also a little bulky. But, till a next gen model is announced that manages to shave off a few millimeters to include a slimmer gamepad, we can’t really expect more.
On the whole though I have to say, weight and plumpness taken into account, the Xperia Play still manages to look pretty good and feel quite functional for gaming and regular use.

Features and Performance
Interface
Gingerbread is the version du jour and Qualcomm’s 1GHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU make functioning slick and fluid. I’m not too happy with Sony Ericsson’s customized UI, but I’m sure most will find it quite usable. The menu can be customized and icons can be moved around and sorted out according to – most used, alphabetical etc. or just according to your own whims and fancies. You can also create folders and drag and drop icons into them. It’s designed to be very functional, as well with very handy and well thought off widgets for various purposes. TimeScape allows you to have all your SN (FB and Twitter) along with messages and calls in the one frame or you can opt to use separated widgets for each. It’s a lot less cluttered that way.

Android 2.2 on a Scorpion Processor

I did find the calibration of the virtual QWERTY keypad a bit off though and even after a factory reset, it was still much too sensitive for my liking. I compared it to the Incredible S, Samsung Galaxy Ace and the Motorola MILESTONE and they come out on top, of course. There’s no way to re-calibrate it or reduce sensitivity.

Media
The audio player is capable of dishing out excellent tone quality via a very comfortable handsfree kit and comes complete with EQ presets and Sony Ericsson’s Infinite button that locates YouTube corresponding videos for your tracks. The handset provides deep bass tones with a very balanced layer of higher and mid range frequencies that can be customized to an extent with the presets. Like any other mobile player you can sync playlist or create your own on the device itself. TrackID for recognizing music from external sources worked like a charm for Hindi, English, Trance and even some Arabic songs (yes I do happen to listen to a few now and then). Sony Ericsson’s Play Now is also on board but somehow, even after all this time, didn’t seem to be available for India. If you’ve been able to access it, please let me know.

Well designed game-pad

I’ve managed to get past the whole high end, high priced Android handsets not coming with native video players that support DivX or XviD codecs since I’m sure manufacturers have simply assumed we’d just download free apps for this off the Market. Still for this kind of money it wouldn’t have hurt.

The lack of an FM radio is also an issue, a minor one, but one none the less further making the price tag seriously stand out. Active Noise Cancellation via a secondary microphone helped quite a bit when in crowded locales. So voice clarity was a non issue -both incoming and outgoing.