Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review

In these days of app stores, every phone offers a library of games; but for most of us, the dream of a true hybrid of handheld games console and smartphone has never been fully realised (a few loyal Nokia N-Gage owners notwithstanding). The standard touchscreen interface is simply no substitute for proper joypad controls.

Now Sony Ericsson has launched the PlayStation-certified Xperia Play which, like Sony’s PSP Go, hides PlayStation controls behind the screen. Slide the large 4in display up and you’ll find the familiar D-pad and four action buttons, plus two circular touchpads which act as analogue thumbsticks. On the back, your fingers naturally fall onto a single pair of L and R shoulder buttons, giving something very close to a full PlayStation controller experience.

Fire up a game and the controls work brilliantly. The D-pad and action buttons are shallow but have a solid, positive action, and a small indent in the centre of each thumbstick somewhat makes up for the lack of any tactile feedback. It’s not going to challenge your PS3 controller for comfort, but it’s perfectly usable.

Games divide into two categories: existing Android titles optimised for physical controls, and PlayStation classics converted for mobile gaming. Sliding the phone open automatically takes you to the former – four games come preinstalled, including FIFA 10 and The Sims 3, both of which work well. Available to download are close to a hundred more, at prices from free to several pounds. Among the tacky cash-ins are at least a few big names such as Avatar, and more are promised, but it’s hardly a compelling collection just yet.

We had higher hopes for the classics, which are found in a separate PlayStation Pocket app, but here you’ll find only the 15-year old Crash Bandicoot preinstalled. Other games can be downloaded – old favourites Destruction Derby and Syphon Filter are among the titles already out, and Sony plans to keep building up the library over time. Sadly, at £3.99 a pop, it’ll cost you a fair bit to gather a collection to match your PlayStation roster of old.

There is a third gaming option that Sony won’t be advertising. Like any other Android phone, the Xperia Play is perfectly capable of running a range of console emulators – Google banned the popular PSX4Droid app from the Market just in time for the Play’s launch, but it can still be downloaded from other sites. Go via this route and the Xperia Play can support not only PlayStation originals but also games for MegaDrive, SNES, GameBoy and N64. We can see it proving very popular for precisely this reason, though it’s hardly the sort of success Sony will have hoped for.

As a phone, the Play has less to distinguish it, offering a very similar experience to the new Xperia Arc. Sony Ericsson’s modified take on Android 2.3 (aka Gingerbread) comes preinstalled, complete with the rather pointless TimeScape social networking feeds app. The 854 x 480 touchscreen is responsive, and everything feels snappy throughout, thanks to the same 1GHz Scorpion processor and Adreno 205 GPU as found in HTC’s Incredible S.

That impression of responsiveness was confirmed in our smartphone benchmarks: the Play loaded the BBC homepage in seven seconds, completed the SunSpider JavaScript in a reasonable 5.5 seconds, and scored 1,344 points in the Android-only Quadrant benchmark. Those scores are all up with the current pack, though they may start to look slow when the coming wave of dual-core smartphones breaks in the coming weeks.

The Play did well in our battery run-down test too, the 1,500mAh battery showing 60% remaining after 24hrs of average use. Gaming will drop that significantly faster, but Sony promises five and a half hours of continuous play.

We found the phone’s 5-megapixel front and rear cameras produced detailed and even photographs, with pretty accurate colours on the whole, though video only records at a disappointing 800 x 480. There’s a bundled 8GB microSD card too.

The Xperia Play does have some design weaknesses. The handset is thicker than a normal phone (thanks to the game controls), and it’s heavier too at 175g. Though the screen is sharp, it’s very dim: even at maximum brightness it looks limp next to the vibrancy of an iPhone 4, which is frustrating in brightly lit environments. The volume rocker works the wrong way round when you’re holding the phone in game mode, and the shoulder buttons feel floaty, hindering your ability to time clicks accurately.

Sony’s software isn’t perfect either: the disconnect between the PlayStation Pocket and Xperia Play apps is confusing, and the respective libraries and storefronts they throw you into are frustratingly inconsistent.

Whether the overall package is a good deal or not depends on what you’re looking for. As a phone, the Xperia Play is a bulky and generally unremarkable Android handset. But if you’re primarily interested in handheld gaming, the flexibility and enjoyment to be had from the Play’s gaming abilities give it a quite unique appeal.

Related Posts

The Best iPhone Remote Apps for a Sony TV How to Connect to WiFi on a Sony TV How To Turn on a Sony TV Without a Remote How To Add Apps to a Sony Smart TV How To Turn On VRR on a Sony TV How to Connect a Sony TV to a Laptop How to Update the Firmware on a Sony TV How To Fix a Sony TV Error Code with 4 Blinks The Best Sony TV Right Now