Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

NEW DELHI: Almost eight years ago, Nokia attempted to merge a smartphone with a gaming console with the N-Gage. More recently, Sony Ericsson attempted to merge motion-sensing gaming with telephony in the Yari. But these never did very well, so a certain amount of cynicism was inevitable when Sony Ericsson announced the Xperia Play, a smartphone that ran Android 2.3 with a slideout gamepad featuring controls similar to those seen on Sony's legendary PlayStation consoles.

it is admittedly difficult to be impressed when you see the Xperia Play. In this era of uber-sleek, subcentimetre width devices, the Xperia Play comes across as chunky (16mm thick) with rounded, oval edges rather than sharp ones. The front is dominated by a 4-inch touchscreen, but the real star is the slide out gamepad, complete with direction keys (the triangle-square-circle-cross control buttons that are the trademark of PlayStation controllers), a touchpad, and buttons for menu, select and start.

The volume rocker of the phone is unusually in the middle of the right side of the phone, a placement necessitated by the left and right gamepad buttons. The back is plastic and you'll see a 5MP camera with a flash. But if the looks of the Xperia Play are about ordinary, its innards are not. The phone packs in a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, graphics based on the Adreno 205 GPU, 512 MB RAM, a 8GB memory card (memory expandable to 32 GB), and every connectivity option you can think of.

And all of them perform very well too. Used just as a smartphone, the Xperia Play turns in a sterling performance, the large display, although a bit on the dim side, is great for browsing the Web and the specs allow Android to flex its mail and social networking muscle.

Features: 4.0-inch, 480x854 capacitive touch screen, Android 2.3, 1Ghz processor, 512MB RAM, 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM, 1500mAh battery, 175 grams
Pros: Android 2.3, excellent touchscreen, dedicated gaming keypad
Cons: Limited PlayStation games available, disappointing camera
Price: Rs 35,000

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play