Sony's gaming network keeps getting defiled by hackers, but in the meantime the company's mobile division has delivered a shiny new PlayStation phone to distract us.
Available for online preorder Thursday, Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play is an Android-powered smartphone equipped with a built-in game controller for playing PlayStation games. We got our hands on the device for some one-on-one time. Our first impressions post-Play time? Game on, we say.
The Xperia Play is attractively subtle, sleek in its glossy finish and understated in a silver and black profile. Aside from the screen's graphics, the only hint of color we actually get on the hardware is the green Sony Ericsson-branded bauble that appears on the back of the handset. It's a nice-looking phone, one we wouldn't mind being seen with day-to-day.
After sliding the screen section up to reveal the control pad, we felt right at home with the familiar PlayStation controller configuration — D-pad on the left, with the square, circle, triangle and X buttons on the right. But the Play forgoes the usual, centered position of the Select and Start buttons.
Two thumb-shaped touchpads take their place. So instead of having to use two virtual joysticks on the touchscreen to control a character, you can use two physical ones. I played a round of Gun Bros using these touchpads, and they worked decently enough, though I found the sensitivity to be a bit wanting. Downloading the game from the Verizon-branded app store was fairly easy.
I was psyched to see an old console favorite, Crash Bandicoot, pre-loaded on the Play (even though I suck at playing it more than I seem to remember), along with six other games bundled on the device.
When I asked if Sony Ericsson would continue publishing PlayStation classics to the Xperia Play, the answer was cagey, though promising: "It's the first step we're taking down this path." Fingers crossed for a Twisted Metal port by the end of the year.
But Sony Ericsson made it clear to me that the Xperia Play is definitely not integrated with the current mess that is Sony's Playstation Network. The phone is "Playstation certified" as a result of Sony Ericsson's partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment America. So those of you worried about the recent hacks on Sony's PSN can put your minds at ease.
What’s more, I actually enjoyed the experience of gaming on the Play. For the first time, I didn't feel like I was playing a game slapped onto a phone interface. The Play feels like a standalone portable gaming device. That's no easy feat to accomplish.
Polygons were rendered beautifully on the Play's 4-inch capacitive touch screen, which seemed large enough to view the games we played. Though I did wonder if I'd be wanting more screen surface area while playing a first-person shooter like Call of Duty (or if we really wanted to get old school, Doom).
And despite it not running on Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 processor like many recent smartphone and tablet offerings, the 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip ran games and menu screens like a charm. We didn't experience any noticeable lag while gaming, nor while running Google's proprietary smartphone apps like Gmail or Calendar.
For the slide-out frame to hide the controller, Sony Ericsson had to make some trade-offs in size -- and it shows. As soon as I picked up the phone, I noticed its bulk. While it isn't overwhelmingly wide, it's definitely chunky enough to chafe an active thigh after walking around with it pocketed for an afternoon.
But really, if we wanted something slim, we'd wait for the thin-bodied Xperia Arc. The Play manages to strike a balance between a comfortable enough device we wouldn't mind putting to our ear, and a slick controller easily used for extended periods of gaming.
Yes, the Play does come with many features familiar to most recent smartphone offerings. It includes two cameras, though the picture quality isn't that great on either. With grainy shots that were a bit washed out, the 5-megapixel back-facing camera wasn't wowing me. And the front-facing VGA camera made my mug look uglier than it already is.
Did I mention it comes running a near-stock Android version 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), the most up-to-date version available for smartphones? Because it does. That's a big deal, considering 95 percent of the Android phones I've seen in 2011 have shipped running 2.2 (Froyo).
Aside from a slight purple tint to the wallpaper and an Xperia Play game launcher that pops up when you slide open the controller, you're dealing with full-blown Android, baby. And that's something we can get behind.
Like what you see? The Xperia Play drops on Verizon's network on May 26 for $200 bucks with a two-year contract.
You can expect our full review of the phone to come after we've tested it thoroughly.
Oh yeah, and we'll try to remember to make phone calls on it, too.
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