Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY Review

Introduction:

Can we say beginning of an era about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play? In case you are wondering why, it is the first ever smartphone with a dedicated gamepad. Sure, its chipset is not the most powerful there is, and its screen is not with the best resolution out there, but when you slide it open, and a PlayStation-style game controller winks at you, instead of a boring QWERTY keyboard, you know something's shifting.

We've been teased about an upcoming PlayStation phone since last summer, and until today so many details about it have been leaked and prototypes examined, that it probably deserves the worst-kept secret crown more than any other phone in recent memory. But that's only regarding the specs and appearance.

For the main part, the Sony Ericsson Xpera Play remained a relative mystery so far. Is the chipset powerful enough to play sophisticated titles? How's the gameplay, and can I resurrect older titles on it? What kind of dedicated game store will be out there for the Xperia Play? All pressing issues that will be addressed in our review, so read on to find out...

Design:

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play keeps up with the “human curvature” design philosophy that the manufacturer introduced with the Vivaz, and followed through with the Xperia line. It mostly indicates the presence of a curved back that makes the phones cuddle and fit comfortably in the hand, and the Xperia Play is no exception, despite that it’s 0.63” (16mm) thick and 6.2oz (175g) in weight. The phone's glossy plastic back also hosts the 5MP camera with LED flash, and the Sony Ericsson green-silver logo. The plastic shell is not the best industrial design out there, but build quality is decent, and we got the the cool white version to boot.



You can compare the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The display is 4” LCD with 480x854 resolution and the ability to show 16 million colors, standard fare for today's high-end Android handsets, and has good viewing angles, which is important, since you will be constantly tilting it in all directions, when frantically pumping those controller buttons. Brightness levels are average, though, so forget about playing anything but music under direct sunlight. Our unit doesn't have an ambient light sensor toggle in the Settings app, and we kept the screen at maximum brightness at all times, since even the maximum level is comparatively average. 


Underneath the display are the four physical Android navigation buttons, arranged in a thin chromed arc that is trademark for the Xperia line. The sides are also chromed and shiny, which looks classy,  combined with the glossy plastic, if you are into this thing. On the left are the standard audio jack and the microUSB port, the top hosts the power/lock button, and on the right we have the volume rocker in the middle, and two buttons you can't see on any other Android handset, namely the shoulder buttons for the game controller.

Now we've come to the part you are most curious about in our design examination – push the screen part gently up, and it snaps into place reassuringly, opening the view to the two circular areas with buttons that probably every gamer is well-acquainted with. The PlayStation-style gamepad has four arrows on the D-Pad on the left, for movement within games, and four action buttons on the right, marked with the iconic PS symbols. They can also be used for navigating in the interface, such as in the main menu, lists, messages, and the browser.


There are two circular analog pads between these two sets, which allow you to make precise movements in games, as if on the touchscreen, without your fingers obstructing the view. Underneath all these game controls is the Android menu key on the left, and Start and Select keys on the right. To top it off, we also have two shoulder buttons/trigger keys for your pointer fingers, akin to the L1 and R1 buttons on the PlayStation controller, which are very sensitive.


That leaves us with no less than 12 ways to interact in gameplay, and the keys are very easy to press, with deep travel, but without being wobbly, ensuring hours of finger gymnastics. In the words of Aaron Duke, Xperia Play's Product Manager, you can “beat the crap out of the keyboard”. We honor his sincerity, and that's exactly what we intend to do, after finding the design nice to look at, and the phone comfortable for handling and, above all, gameplay.

The gamepad takes a little getting used to, and it is slightly tiring to keep pounding on it after the first hour or so, due to the controller half being thinner than what you are usually accustomed to with full-size gamepads. Still, that's the price to pay if you want to keep the handset's waistline in check, and the only other issue you are likely to encounter is when you have to press a bunch of buttons at once, including the shoulder buttons. Unless you are a kid with small fingers, of course. We also didn't notice any backlighting of the keys, and no way to turn it on in the Settings app. With that out of the way, we do think that Sony Ericsson has done a very good job overall with this gamepad, which is by far the most comfortable gaming control on a cell phone (for those types of games that require it).

Interface and Functionality:

We have the new version of Sony Ericsson's UX Android interface that shrinks down Mediascape to one elaborate widget, and leaves only Timescape – the card-based notification system for your social network accounts and messages - on one of the homescreens. We examined this updated interface in our Xperia arc preview, if you want to have a look at it in details. Coupled with the transparent backgrounds and cool animations, this new interface is shiny, good-looking, and, according to the company, is simple enough to ensure timely updates to the next versions of Android after 2.3 Gingerbread, what we have on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play.

It is not an accident that the phone ships with Gingerbread, which sports numerous gaming-oriented enhancements, like native motion sensor support, thanks to which "a game application could use readings from a gyroscope and accelerometer on the device to recognize complex user gestures and motions, such as tilt, spin, thrust, and slice." Slice is nice!

Android 2.3 also improves the support for 3rd party video drivers, used in 3D graphics acceleration, and includes system level coding to minimize application pauses. This ensures smoother animations, and increased responsiveness in games. The Gingerbread platform now recognizes touch and keyboard input faster, and at the same time with minimum CPU load. This helps all interactions with your Android phone to appear smoother, with the main beneficiary being games, which use touch controls. In the case of the Xperia Play, that also includes the dedicated gamepad, whose PlayStation symbols were found in the Gingerbread SDK way back in December.

The 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset with an Adreno 205 graphics subsystem in the Xperia Play might not be dual-core, but it achieves high enough benchmark scores of around 1500 on Quadrant, which is sufficient for the games you are likely to rock on the Android handset with smooth fps. The chip was probably top of the line when Sony Ericsson started working on the handset, before NVIDIA started pitching Tegra 2 to Google. It seems to be used in all of the new Android handsets from the Xperia line, so Sony must have gotten a discount to use it. Just kidding.

All system info apps we tried showed 400MB of user-available RAM and 380MB of user-available ROM, which is sufficient for the kind of games you are likely to find for the handset. Still, bear in mind that the handset has a single-core processor, so some upcoming games that we expect to be optimized for dual-core might not run very well on the Xperia Play. Exactly when such games will come out is still unknown though.

Internet, Connectivity and Software:

The app for browsing the Internets performs very well, with average pinch-to-zoom and double-tap response, compared to the dual-core handsets, for instance, but we are spoiled. We updated to Adobe Flash 10.2 and there was a slight boost in rendering Flash because of that. The 4” display has enough resolution to make text appear sharp and comfortable to read. 


The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play we had was with European/Asian 3G GSM frequencies, but it will also be available in a CDMA flavor on Verizon, and maybe other carriers in the US. The handset rounds it up with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and DLNA connectivity for wireless multimedia streaming, which has its own dedicated Media Server app to manage it.

The lack of an HDMI port to connect the gaming-oriented handset to a big screen HDTV is puzzling at best, considering DLNA is not that wide-spread and fluid yet. Why did Sony Ericsson include HDMI on the thin Xperia arc, and castrated the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play which needs it more, is beyond us. Here we even have a dedicated gamepad, so it would have been logical to use it as such, with all the action happening on your living room TV via HDMI. Oh, well, in the next edition, we presume.

We guess you can use DLNA to stream your phone's screen to the TV, passing through a Windows 7 laptop with HDMI port, if the TV is not DLNA-enabled, but the lag might be significant. The Media Server app on the Xperia Play allows you to control what devices you stream to or from, and it also manages the media you want to share.

Another app worth mentioning is LiveWare - it allows you to start an application of your choosing when something is connected to the phone, be it a headset, headphones, or a charger. Thus you can start the music or video player each time headphones are connected, or automatically go into the desktop clock mode in Android, while the handset is charging. We also have the WhatsApp Messenger, which allows you to exchange text messages for free, and the usual suspects – TrackID for song recognition and OfficeSuite doc viewer and file manager – that have been present on Sony Ericsson's phones for a while now.

Gaming:

We already reviewed the gamepad, and found it styled in the best PlayStation traditions, only redesigned to fit the phone's form factor, but what’s there to do with it? For starters, there is the PlayStation Pocket app, which is dedicated to the sentimental gamers out there, to offer such PS one classics like… Crash Bandicoot. Yes, that’s the only classic title preloaded on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, but we are sure more are to follow, since we asked Sony itself. The company told us we will soon have also Syphon Filter, MediEvil, Rally Cross, Cool Boarders 2, WildArms, Destruction Derby and Jumping Flash in Android Market, before the PlayStation Suite initiative launches later this year.


Besides, we made a test downloading a bunch of emulators from Android Market for the old consoles  like Nintendo, PSX, Capcom's titles, and so on. All worked as they would on any fast Android phone, but since we have a physical gamepad here, we mapped the keys to it, and switched off the virtual gamepad overlays, which gave us the whole 4” screen to play Cadillacs&Dinosaurs, or any other classic. Thus we didn't worry we'll break the touchscreen with the constant enraged tapping, or we'll have to wipe it with a cloth each time we finished gaming. However, knowing Sony, it might address this loophole, since one of the PS one emulators was just pulled from Android Market.

Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY emulator gaming:



The rest of the gaming action is happening within the confines of the Xperia Play app that fires up when you slide open the gamepad. It shows all the Xperia Play-friendly titles available, with a separate section for the ones you've already installed, and the ones that are still out there. The full list of titles is in the Get Games app, which lists such tailored Xperia Play games, regardless if the source is Android Market, or developers' own websites, like the Gameloft titles.


There are up to seven preinstalled titles coming with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play from the box, depending on the region, and we counted 30+ in the Get Games app list, so this brings us to about 40 titles we had at our disposal at launch. The prices hover around $4, and some of them are free.

Verizon's Xperia PLAY actually relies on the VCast store to supply you with those additional Xperia PLAY-optimized games. The good thing about it is that it uses carrier billing, so all purchases will go to your monthly bill, rather than your credit card.   

Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY preloaded games test:



We had Bruce Lee, Star Batallion, FIFA 10 (which will most likely be Madden NFL 2011 in the US), Sims 3, Crash Bandicoot and... Tetris. As you can see, nothing really exclusive, but we are willing to give some time for the game store to mature.

Furthermore, when the PlayStation Suite initiative hits later this year, we should bring much more titles to choose from. It will be a platform initiative for downloadable PlayStation content to devices that meet the forthcoming PlayStation Certified requirements, like Sony's new NGP console, and our here own Xperia Play phone. We are currently probing Sony for the exact PlayStation Certified requirements. Sony hasn't explicitly said no other manufacturer will be able to make PS Certified gear, but we won't be surprised if it says so.

It is also worth mentioning that the Havok game physics engine, which is behind titles like Fallout: New Vegas and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, will be available for developers on the Xperia Play:

“As part of Havok’s overall support for the Android™ platform, we are very pleased to partner with Sony Ericsson to put the full power of the Havok product line into the hands of Xperia™ PLAY developers. We were extremely impressed by the performance of the Xperia™ PLAY and the ease with which we were able to port and optimise our technology to the platform. This will enable developers to use Havok technology to create cinematic, rich 3-D immersive games for Android™ smartphones with Xperia™ PLAY in the forefront.”,said the managing director at Havok.

We tried to test the multiplayer capabilities of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, but, naturally, we couldn't find anyone to join our games yet. You can still use your Gameloft ID, though, to play Star Batallion and the like on the developer's network, if there is a host to join. The handset also asks you if you want to stage a deathmatch over Wi-Fi, or on the Internet, so you can have some local fun with friends too. The FIFA 10 edition in particular, Sony told us, is “world-first multiplayer version of FIFA 10 for mobile”, so there you have it. We wish we had one more review unit to kick off a fight in the office.

Camera and Multimedia:

The shooter on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is 5MP with LED flash. It is not the 8MP Exmor R sensor we have on the Xperia arc and the Xperia neo, but it is still very capable, as most of Sony’s cell phone shooters are. The camera interface is the stock Android one, although we have our hopes that we might see a personalized UI, since on the Xperia arc and neo the camera interface was skinned with large enough icons to be touch-friendly, and plethora of settings. A rundown of the custom camera UI in question can be found in our Xperia arc preview here.





The photos turned quite detailed, with a good tradeoff between noise reduction and sharpness. The color representation is on the warm and joyful side, even in the cloudy day we shot, and it is noteworthy that the shot-to-shot times were very short, when you turn the preview option off.

For some odd reason, there is no 720p HD video capture option with the 5MP camera, and the highest you can go is a 800x480 video at 30fps, which exhibits the same warm colors, and good focus and detail, as the stills. Weird, we know, as it has become mandatory for 1GHz chipsets to be able to do HD video, so it is most probably coming with a software update of sorts, like what SE did with the Xperia X10. This, and the stock Android camera interface, made us wonder if there will be any last minute tweaks to the firmware, , so we are in the process of checking with the company on that, and will update upon reply.

UPDATE: Sony Ericsson told us that there will be some more software tweaks, and the unit will ship with HD 720p video capture option, but the camera interface will stay the stock Android one, as you see it now.

Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY Sample Video:



Overall, you will be very satisfied with the results from the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play's camera, despite that it is not at all what the handset is focused on.

The music player is the same one with the unobtrusive interface we are used to from the rest of the Xperia line, and offers no less than ten preset equalizers. We have to once again praise the excellent loudspeaker unit we find on a handset from the Xperia line. It is a joy to listen to, with strong and crisp sound, and we wish every manufacturer took a page from Sony’s book in that respect.


Now multiply that by two, since the Xperia Play has two outstanding stereo speakers facing you when you play games, and we cringe just imagining if we had to listen to game audio for hours on anything less capable. Not to mention you don’t need a boombox for some improvised street dancing now.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play’s video playback goes all the way up to HD 720p video without a hiccup, but for DivX/Xvid files you will have to hit Android Market for players.

Performance:

Verizon Wireless Xperia PLAY:

While using Verizon's Xperia PLAY to place and receive voice calls, we were treated to a somewhat average experience. Thankfully, on our end voices were adequately loud, though not crystal clear, so we had no trouble comprehending. Our callers didn't have the same luck though, since they were subjected to lots crackling noises coming from our mic.

The CDMA version of the handset is specifically rated at 7.66 hours of talk-time and about 17 days of stand-by - a standard performance - comparable to what you'll get from the majority of similarly spec'd Android phones out there.

GSM Xperia PLAY:

Voice quality from the earpiece of the GSM Xperia Play is very clear and distinct, and the volume is plenty. On the other side our friends also had no problem to hear natural-sounding voices, thanks to the dual-microphone setup for noise cancellation.

The 1500mAh battery is rated by the manufacturer at 6.25 hours talk time in 3G mode, which, of course, can be extended to more than eight hours, if you turn off the 3G radio. We know you are most interested in battery life during gameplay, and Sony Ericsson promised 5.5 hours of uninterrupted fun.

Conclusion:

From our time spent gaming on the device we have to say the company is mostly right about it, the battery didn’t drain for 2-3 hours, as we expected, but on the simpler titles. With more sophisticated 3D titles the toll on the battery life is significant. In the end it’s still an Android smartphone that has to be charged daily, don’t even doubt it.

In the end, we have to give Sony Ericsson Xperia Play the benefit of the doubt. Many of us expected it will feature a multicore chipset with scorching GPU to take our mind away, but Sony seems to have reserved that for the PSP2, dubbed Next Generation Portable. It also shies away from a unorthodox exterior, in order to keep in line with Sony Ericsson’s Xperia line fresh looks, curves and materials.

Yet there is something about it for being the first dedicated handset for Android gaming that makes us dismiss the notion that Sony is just milking the PlayStation mojo with the Xperia Play. We came to the conclusion that it is a very capable first effort for a game-centric Android device, the green robot’s first “console”.

The game development for it is still in its nascence, and there aren’t titles that you won’t meet elsewhere, but we will give the platform some time to mature. After all, we have a smartphone with a dedicated gamepad at our disposal to kill time now, and the titles’ are to be priced $2-$16, depending on how complex the game is, which is pretty decent – none of the current available titles is more than $4. Thus the games for the Xperia Play cost about the same as some of the more popular titles in the App Store or Android Market, and the market will ultimately be the judge for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play's success. For each average gamer, though, sliding open the screen part of their smartphone to reveal a familiar PlayStation controller can prove an irresistible temptation, since it is something we admittedly wished for since the dawn of mobile gaming.

Oh, and let’s not kid ourselves that the Game Gripper, or any other similar aftermarket accessory offers the same experience as the controller on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, because what we have here is way better. Once titles that get a good use of this gamepad start sprouting like alfalfa in the dedicated Xperia Play app, or in the upcoming PlayStation Suite store, the phone will be an even more compelling gaming device. Not to mention the barrage of games combined neatly into emulator packages on Android Market, which can easily be mapped to the buttons on the Xperia Play, as well as the rumors for Valve's Steam gaming network looking to appear on Android.

What can we say, the chubby green robot just grew opposing thumbs, as there aren’t any smartphone alternatives with a dedicated gamepad now, although we shouldn’t be forgetting Nokia’s efforts with the N-Gage line once upon a time. What we think Sony is trying to do here is to create a PlayStation Certified mobile gaming platform, which will be accessible from future phones, portable consoles, and maybe even its tablets, in order for the company to have a chance against Apple in mobile gaming. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is a bit rough around the edges, as all first efforts are, but it might very well be a harbinger of things to come, and it’s good to have a front seat for some fun in the meantime.

Software version of the review unit: Android 2.3; 3.0.A.2.184