Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review

For ages the Xperia Play was referred to by everyone as the PlayStation Phone. And with all the hype surrounding Sony Ericsson’s latest Android handset it’s hard to imagine it living up to expectations. The lack of PlayStation branding in the name is telling, this phone is a collaboration between Sony Ericsson and Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), and so isn’t a thoroughbred PlayStation product, but instead is ‘PlayStation Certified’.

There’s no direct connection to the PlayStation Portable (PSP) then, and it won’t run games compatible with Sony’s handheld gaming device – which is probably all most people wanted or expected from a PlayStation phone. It will run games from the, frankly retro, original PlayStation (PS1) – but only those that have been specially converted for use on the Play. The other games in the current line-up are essentially Android games, such as an update of long-running driving series Asphalt, which has been modified to add support for its controls.

It’s those dedicated controls that really make the Xperia Play stand out. They are positioned on a slide out portion, much like a keyboard on many phones. The touchscreens on modern smartphones have no doubt inspired some novel new control mechanisms in mobile games; but more traditional console games will really benefit from the Play’s directional pad, four face buttons, two circular analogue touchpads and shoulder buttons.

The Play’s design is identical to previous Xperia phones, with its rounded and tapered ends and glossy plastic highlighted by chrome details. The top half of the Xperia consists of the screen and four buttons for Android’s common functions: Back, Home, Menu and Search. The bottom half is about 50% thicker, and houses the Playstation controls as well as the phone’s ports – microUSB and headphone. This adds up to quite a thick phone, and it feels heavy too, but not uncomfortably so – its rounded shape helps it slip easily into a pocket.

There’s one PS1 game installed, platformer Crash Bandicoot, along with five updated mobile games covering the usual console genres – racing, fighting, football etc. Further games are available for download, with Sony claiming that 60 will be available soon after launch. No doubt developers will be adding support for the Play’s controls over the coming months.

We found the controls helped a lot in games we’d previously found frustrating or unintuitive to play on a touchscreen – driving games that ask you to tilt the screen to steer your car, for example. The controls feel well-placed and comfortable in use, although the small touchpads feel over-sensitive. Even after practice they didn’t feel like a patch on a proper analogue stick or slider (as found on Nintendo’s 3DS).

The screen’s 480×854 resolution is large, even for a 4in screen, and with such tightly-packed pixels we found images to be pin-sharp. Colours were vibrant too, and contrast excellent. The Adreno graphics chip is certainly impressive too, holding down rock-solid frame rates, though it must be said that graphical detail isn’t a big step up from what smartphone users will be used to. Its capacitive touch interface was smooth and responsive, and our only complaint would be the lack of an oleophobic coating to keep greasy fingerprint smudges to a minimum.

As a smartphone, the Play is impressive, mainly thanks to the 2.3 update which adds some much-needed polish to Android. Text editing operations are vastly easier; when you tap in a text box, a large cursor tab appears that you can drag around. There are numerous improvements to the user interface, with a switch to white text and icons on a black background and green highlighting, which makes them more visible. Under the hood, you now get native support for the SIP protocol, which allows VoIP calls, and support for SyncML, a long-standing open standard for data synchronisation. Downloads from the browser, email or other apps are now stored in one location, so you can manage your files easier.

Some of the user interface improvements have been overwritten by Sony Ericsson’s own customisation however. There’s no link to Manage Applications from the Home screen menu, for example. You do get a clever feature that improves on HTC’s helicopter view – when you pinch any home screen, you get a view of all the widgets on all home screens tiled into one screen, so you quickly jump to a specific widget. The app tray, which scrolls side-to-side, can be sorted and re-ordered, so you can collect your apps into themed groups.

The Xperia Play was a joy to use as a phone, then, though much of this is down to the high-resolution screen and the latest version of Android. Take a step back and it feels very much like a dollied up version of last year’s handsets, partly due to its single-core processor. We expect to see an army of super-slender phones with dual-core chips from every manufacturer over the coming couple of months. In short, we’d hold off if you’re just looking for a nice new Android handset, at least until handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S2, with its 4.3in AMOLED display and super-slim 8.5mm thickness, are launched.

Its game controls make it a serious quandary for dedicated mobile gamers, though. They certainly provide a better experience in traditional console-style games; but then the hardware isn’t an innovative as Nintendo’s 3DS and pales against the upcoming next-gen PSP. Publisher support appears to be good, but quality may be an issue with a line-up of rejigged mobile titles and aging PS1 games. We’re always wary of any device that splits an established format (in this case Android gaming), and if the Play isn’t successful then dedicated titles could dry up very quickly.

This is the best smartphone for playing games on, but that in itself suggests a compromise between two functions and it’s not the best device for either. It’s a little pricey at £30 per month on contract, when compared to standard phones with similar specifications, but if you really like mobile games, and don’t want to carry two devices, then the Xperia Play should be right up your street.