Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY - Review

“While the combination of smartphone and PlayStation sounds like the stuff of gamers’ dreams, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed with the end result”

Google Android Gingerbread

Ever since the emergence of the PSP it seemed only a matter of time until we received word of marriage twixt mobile phone and PlayStation.

And here it is in the form of the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, although you wouldn’t know it from looking at it.

Despite being “PlayStation Certified”, the lack of PlayStation branding on the PLAY is conspicuous by its absence.

Sony Ericsson undoubtedly has one eye on making sure that this phone appeals to as wide an audience as possible and so may be keen to avoid it being cast simply as “the PlayStation phone”.

However, sliding aside the ample four-inch multi-touch screen to reveal a game pad adorned with the well-known circle, cross, square and triangle buttons shows you that is exactly what it is.

XPERIA Play(black) £39.99

100 min Unlimited texts

£21.50

But we’ll come back to that later on. As part of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia range of Android-based smartphones, let’s see how it handles as a handset first.

The PLAY is powered by Gingerbread 2.3, the latest version of Google’s operating system, making the user interface slick and instinctive, although delving deeper down into the likes of settings and ongoing apps menus can be a clunky experience.

Timescape, Sony Ericsson’s social application, which aims to collect Facebook status updates, tweets and other messages in one place, is a nice idea, but it looks better than it works and can prove frustratingly fiddly.

The 5.1 megapixel camera the PLAY offers is a case of “good, but could be better”. The clarity of the still life images it produces is crisp and clean, but introduce motion and things get murky - though still usable. Oddly, it doesn’t seem to include a zoom function.

Similarly, the video, while perfectly adequate, is difficult to get excited about, especially as it seems to struggle with changes in light and fast-moving objects. But then, who is likely to buy the PLAY to make videos with?

The same could be said for the music player, which has a pleasingly simple layout, saving you from getting tangled up in options when all you want to do is sing along.

Game pad

The PLAY weighs in at a pocket-straining 175g

So, back to that game pad; as well as the four standard PlayStation buttons, it features left and right shoulder buttons, a digital D pad, two analogue touch pads and the usual “start” and “select” buttons as well as one for settings.

While the PLAY feels satisfyingly weighty and reassuringly expensive when closed, this changes when the game pad slides out.

Although the PLAY weighs in at a pocket-straining 175g - about three-quarters of a cup of sugar - it can feel worryingly flimsy when it’s ready to rock.

Game-wise, the review model came locked and loaded with Asphalt 6, Bruce Lee, Crash Bandicoot, FIFA 10, NFS Shift, Star Battalion, Tetris and The Sims 3.

Aside from Tetris, many of these titles suffer from annoyingly long loading times, which is unexpected given the PLAY’s 1GHz Scorpion processor, though the same chipset has no problem in whizzing the games along once you're playing.

The multi-touch screen proves to be something of a bane to the PLAY as a gaming device, with many of the pre-loaded titles - we’re looking at you Bruce Lee and FIFA 10 - seemingly unable to make up their minds whether they want you to use the game pad or the screen to play them.

Playing FIFA 10 using the analogue touch pads proves tricky at first, but there are signs that perseverance will provide satisfaction, while Crash Bandicoot proves to be as enjoyable as it was on the PS One all those years ago.

However, the game pad is not as ergonomic as it could be and prolonged gaming can bring about a variety of thumb, hand and wristaches, not to mention a sore neck, although that could just be me showing my age.

PlayStation Suite

Clear close up but gets murky with motion

While none of the games we played blew us away, getting new ones from the Xperia PLAY app is easy.

With the likes of Rainbow Six and Crash Bandicoot being great-granddads by gaming standards, and even titles such as FIFA 10 hardly hot off the press, a range of marquee titles will be needed to attract hardcore gamers to the PLAY.

The evidence on Android Market is that this is happening, but slowly - Captain America, Guitar Hero 6 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 are all available for between 61p and £4.89. However, while all three titles are PLAY optimised, only Captain America can be considered a truly new title.

The PlayStation Suite initiative, aimed at delivering the PlayStation experience to Android devices, anticipated later this year, could change this by delivering games that are purpose built for the PLAY as they arrive on other PlayStation platforms.

However, until then, hobbled as it is by uncomfortable controls and lack of customised content, it will remain a part-time portable PlayStation for when the outside world wrenches game junkies away from the real thing. Good battery mind.