For the last couple of weeks I’ve had another mobile to trial courtesy of the lovely folks at Three and Brando and this time it’s a phone I’ve wanted to get my hands on since it first launched – the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, “the world’s first Playstation certified smartphone” – I’ve been keen to try this as it’s currently my choice for my upgrade next April and because it’s the first Android phone I’ve had a go on which is running Android 2.3, so here goes…..
The first thing I noticed about the Play is that, due to the slide out joypad and Playstation-style controls, the phone itself is quite chunky but is still easily pocketable, is a decent weight and feels good to hold. The internal memory is 400MB and a massive 16GB SD card came with my trial model (although the web says an 8GB card is supplied, the maximum SD card allowed is 32GB) and I particularly like the fact that Android 2.3 supports installing of games and apps directly to the SD card allowing for many more to be installed unlike on my current Android phone where I install 6 games and apps and get the ‘low memory’ warning!
Thanks to it’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor everything on the phone is smooth and fast as you’d expect from a high-end Android phone and the screen is bright and sharp meaning games, websites and apps look fantastic. All the usual pre-installed apps and widgets are here but for many people interested in this phone the main attraction will be the games and the slide-out joypad and controls (pictured above) – the only niggle I would mention is that with the controls out the left and right shoulder buttons are a little tricky to get to but this doesn’t spoil gameplay too much. Pre-installed on the phone is the original Playstation version of Crash Bandicoot – the Play can run emulations of original PS One games although there is a black border either side on these – also available from the Android Market are the excellent Demolition Derby and Wipeout. Also pre-installed are 4 regular Android games – Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, FIFA ’10, Star Battalion and The Sims 3 although additional content has to be downloaded once over Wi-Fi before they can be played but this only took a few minutes to do, all these games are excellent and make good use of the Play’s joypad and control buttons.
The choice of games available for the Play is growing all the time and a really impressive selection is currently available for further purchase (at the time of writing Asphalt 6, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six : Shadow Vanguard HD are free) including such excellent titles as Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Need for Speed Shift from EA, PES 2011 from Konami and several Gameloft titles including Modern Combat 2, Assassin’s Creed Altair’s Chronicles, NOVA 2, Backstab and Brothers in Arms 2 – to access the current range you simply turn the phone to landscape and slide out the controls, the currently installed games are on the left and the other side allows you to purchase additional games - this phone really is like having an arcade in your pocket and that’s before you even discover the many thousands of apps and games in the Android Market! I must also mention that even the BBC iPlayer is pre-installed!
Moving on to the phone’s camera, this is a 5MP affair with 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus and LED flash – I was really impressed with this camera, it takes sharp, crisp, clear high quality photos even under low and artificial lighting conditions.
To sum up, this is by far the best Android phone I’ve yet tried, it’s fast, powerful, feature packed with an excellent and constantly increasing choice of games and having the slide-out PS-style controls really adds to the gaming experience – I am really sorry to be returning this phone but on the bright side I only have to wait till April to get one of my own! :-))
