GDC 2011: Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play Hands On (Video)

Posted by | 03/05/2011 | 7 Comments

We caught up with Sony Ericsson at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to get some hands-on time with the company’s ‘PlayStation Phone,’ officially called the XPERIA Play. The XPERIA Play is an Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone that was announced at Mobile World Congress and features a slide-out PlayStation controller along with shoulder trigger buttons. Check out our hands-on video demo of the smartphone, which will be arriving State-side via Verizon Wireless sometime in April, embedded below:

Although the company wasn’t able to announce any specifics in terms of handset pricing when it launches on Verizon’s 3G CDMA/EV-DO network, Sony Ericsson told me that it should be priced aggressively and competitively with other high-end smartphones.

The interesting thing is that the XPERIA Play was considered to be among the top contenders for the title of flagship Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone. However, in the end, Google awarded that to the Nexus S, made by Samsung. The representative at the booth revealed that information when I had asked him why the XPERIA Play has four Android hardware navigation buttons when other Android phones in the XPERIA lineup only has three (Menu, List, and Home where the Search button is omitted on the hardware design).



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About the Author (Author Profile)

Tech enthusiast in Silicon Valley enjoying the possibilities of ubiquitous connectivity, information sharing, and collaboration enabled by mobile broadband. You can contact Chuong on Twitter @chuongvision or with the same ID on Skype.

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  1. [...] addition to showing off the XPERIA Play as a PlayStation-certified Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone, Sony Ericsson was also demoing the [...]

  2. [...] for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet Box WordPress PluginIn addition to showing off the XPERIA Play as a PlayStation-certified Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone, Sony Ericsson was also demoing the [...]

  3. Keanu Abinaf says:

    Everyone start using android on it’s system…let see what will nokia do

  4. [...] It’s unclear as to the reasons why Sony Ericsson still have not released a Windows Phone 7 device, but there are speculations that suggest that the company could not reach a compromise with Microsoft over Xbox Live, a key selling point of Windows Phone 7. Sony Ericsson, which is half-operated by Sony, a company which has a rival gaming platform to Microsoft’s Xbox in the form of the PlayStation. Sony Ericsson has recently announced its own PlayStation Phone in the form of the XPERIA Play. [...]

  5. [...] brought gaming expertise from its PlayStation division to the smartphone division to create the XPERIA Play. On the XPERIA Arc, the Sony Ericsson team leveraged the power of the TV division with the Bravia [...]

  6. [...] gaming add-ons that connect over Bluetooth. Unlike the Tegra 2 phones, Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA Play actually uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon single-core CPU rather than NVIDIA’s mobile [...]

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