14 DAY TRIAL // Japanese-Swedish mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson came to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with some brand new smartphones to showcase, including the Xperia PLAY, the first handset in the world to be PlayStation certified, and Softpedia's editors had the chance to spend a few minutes with it.
What sets this device apart from the rest of the high-end smartphones launched at MWC is a slide out game pad with a digital D pad, two analogue touch pads, and two shoulder buttons, along with the four popular PlayStation icons: circle, cross, square and triangle.
A 1Ghz CPU and embedded Adreno GPU graphics processor power this behemoth, offering it enough performance capabilities to provide users with a great gaming experience while on the go. The handset supports both 60fps play-back 3D mobile gaming and Web browsing, the company notes.
Being a PlayStation Certified device means that Xperia PLAY will be able to access PlayStation game content, which will be available via the PlayStation Suite initiative, set to be launched later this year.
The smartphone runs under Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, and will arrive on shelves with a series of games on board, coming from leading developers, including EA’s The Sims 3 and FIFA 10, GLU Mobile/Activision' Guitar Hero, or Gameloft’s Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell.
Sony Ericsson partnered with various content providers for the launch of this smartphone, so as to make sure that users benefit from a wide range of games on the new Xperia PLAY smartphone.
The specifications list of this smartphone includes a 4-inch display that boasts a 480 x 854 pixels (FWVGA) resolution, a 1 GHz Scorpion ARMv7 application processor, or up to 400 MB of internal memory.
The phone sports a microSD memory card slot (up to 32GB, with an 8GB card included), 3G connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3.5 mm audio jack, aGPS, Wi-Fi Hotspot, and a 5.1 megapixel camera on the back, with auto focus, flash and video recording.
Among the other features of this device, we can count TrackID, PlayNow, Google Talk, Sony Ericsson Timescape, access to Google Maps, Google Gallery 3D, YouTube, Android Market, or to social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.
Note: Fellow editors Cosmin Vasile and Alex Vochin are on the floor at the 2011 Mobile World Congress and are keeping us posted with pictures and live reports on the latest product previews and launches.
