[MWC] The highlight of the Sony Ericsson press conference was the official announcement of the highly awaited “PlayStation smartphone” aka the Xperia Play. Gaming is the most popular category in the Apple app store, so Sony Ericsson made a smart move with the release of this gaming phone.
Sony Ericsson claims that the Xperia Play features great graphics performance thanks the Qualcomm Snapdragon system on a chip (SoC) that integrates the Adreno 205 graphics processor (GPU). It might not be faster than Tegra 2, but it’s hard to tell just by looking at the games and trying to decipher the frame rate.
You’ll hear a lot about “PlayStation Games”, but games on the Xperia Play will be Android games. The real added value here is the Playstation controller, many gamers are familiar with the user interface. The PlayStation store is a huge branding advantage for Sony Ericsson against potential competitive devices that could feature the same gaming controllers.
A Sony Ericsson representative showed me a demo of the Xperia Play, check out the video, the device was confirmed to ship in March at the press conference, no word on the pricing.
Specifications Highlights
- 1GHz Qualcomm Scorpion processor
- 4″ touch display (480 x 854)
- Android 2.3
- Slide-out gamepad – 4 directional keys, 2 analogue touchpads, 2 shoulder buttons, 4 PlayStation buttons (Cross, Circle, Triangle, Square)
- 5.1 Megapixel Camera
- Bluetooth (stereo), Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Hotspot,
- DLNA
- 3.5mm audio jack
- 8GB microSD (included)
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