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Home > Android Phone Reviews > Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
What's hot: Great gaming controller, sharp display, excellent speakers, atttractive and solid build.
What's not: No dual core CPU and no 4G LTE.
Reviewed June 13, 2011 by Lisa Gade, Editor
in Chief
These days, multi-function consumer electronics products are the norm. Your printer is your fax and your scanner, while your smartphone is your web browser, shopping list and mobile gaming machine. Sony Ericsson, with heavy emphasis on the “Sony” part, has taken things even further and made the first Playstation Certified Android smartphone. The Xperia Play is a fine, though not remarkable phone in its own right; but the PSP controller grafted onto the chassis brings mobile gaming to a new level. Let’s face it; playing with virtual controllers on a touch screen just doesn’t cut it for serious 3D action and FPS games. Your finger wanders, and with no tactile feedback, your character has turned from ace commando to sitting duck in a heartbeat. That won’t happen with the Xperia Play, as long as the game is controller-aware.
The Xperia Play, available on Verizon Wireless in the US, has a remarkable facsimile of a Playstation controller that slides out for gaming fun. All the buttons are here except L2 and R2: it has circle, square, triangle, right and left shoulder buttons, select, start and both a traditional d-pad and dual optical d-pads. The optical d-pads work better than their on-screen equivalents thanks to a center raised dot and a raised outer border so you can keep your fingers on target. This is a phone with a 4” display, and that means this controller is smaller than the console controller, but we found it manageable enough (fellas with really large hands might not).
When pre-release reviews came out, Sony Ericsson and Verizon hadn’t gotten their downloadable titles out yet, and the reviews were based on 6 games only. Happily, on release day, 50 titles hit the V Cast Apps store, and the Xperia Play has kept us all too “busy” testing a bevy of tier one titles like Crash Bandicoot (currently the only PS franchise game), Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus, Assassin’s Creed HD, Zenonia 2, Brothers in Arms 2: Global Front, Splinter Cell Conviction, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Madden NFL 11, Star Battalion, Sims 3 and Avatar HD. While many of the V Cast Apps games are controller aware, some aren’t, nor are standard Android Market games (not that the Market is overwhelmed with top 3D gaming titles). Clearly, the controller-aware titles are the phone’s selling point, and Sony Ericsson has been hard at work partnering with game developers like Gameloft and EA to get titles out. Rather than using the Android Market, you’ll get Xperia Play titles from Verizon’s App store. You can redownload games you’ve purchased to your phone if need be, and it seems like you’ll be able to download them to other Verizon Android smartphones in the future, but if you switch carriers, say goodbye to your games. Of course, the Xperia Play isn’t offered by another US carrier, but if the platform is successful, who knows what might appear in another carrier’s lineup if SE comes up with new models. Weeks after release, we noted that the App store for game downloads was still a bit slow and quirky—we’d like to see that experience improved.
While the controller sets the Xperia Play apart from other game-worthy Android smartphones, including those powerful Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core phones, you need a good display and sound. The Xperia Play scores high marks with its extremely sharp 4” capacitive display. Contrast is very high and blacks are deep; though it’s not the brightest display we’ve seen, it’s excellent for gaming. The Xperia Play’s larger display gives it a leg up against the iPhone 4 and its large selection of high end games. The speakers are remarkable and put the iPhone 4 to shame: they’re full with clear and sharp highs and very good bass for small speakers and volume is very loud. Very.
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