Rumours about a PlayStation phone surfaced months ago, and as always, those rumours lead to speculation. As more information about this extraordinary, one-of-a-kind gaming phone leaked, tech magazines and websites were flooded with digital prototypes.

The elusive PlayStation phone, renamed the Xperia Play by Sony Ericsson, made its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month. Disappointingly, it received a lukewarm reception, and the creepy Super Bowl commercial didn't do much to add to its appeal.

Nevertheless, it being the first PlayStation certified smartie gave us more than enough reason to jump up and down like school kids in front of an ice-cream cart when we first greedily set our hands on the phone.

Controls

Any tech journalist who's got a hold of the phone will tell you that instinct guides you towards the slide-out gamepad, the famed centrepiece of the phone. At first glance, we're pretty impressed by what we see. The gamepad slides out smoothly, with a satisfying click, to reveal all the gaming controls you need from a console. On either side of the gamepad are a quartet of buttons – the left holds the directional ones (up, down, left and right), and the right has the four iconic PlayStation buttons (square, triangle, circle and cross). Nestled snugly between the controls are two circular, touch-sensitive analog pads, which function like joysticks. At the centre of each pad is a depressed metal dot, to give your thumbs a sense of direction. It takes some getting used to, but we found the touch pads quite handy for racing games like Asphalt 6, especially when it came to taking sharp turns on the track.

At the bottom are three buttons, one is the Android Menu button, and the two others are Select and Start. A delightful discovery is that the top corners of the gamepad have two shoulder buttons, which are substitutes for the L1 and R1 controls on a regular console gamepad. The downside is that we didn't use these buttons much on most games we played.

Also, Sony Ericsson has compromised on the quality of the buttons, which feel plasticky and flimsy.

The 4-inch display with a resolution of 480x854 pixels is decent, but we would have really liked to see an AMOLED screen at the least. Even the Xperia Arc looks brighter in comparison. At highest levels of brightness, it's still quite dull, and when we tried gaming outdoors, it was virtually impossible to make out anything in the sunlight. However, the screen didn't let us down when it came to gaming, given that it's of considerably higher resolution than the one on the PSP 3004.

Game on

Considering that this is a gaming phone, we would expect a dedicated app which would be able to showcase all the games in one place, but disappointingly, this isn't the case. Sliding out the gamepad directly brings up the Xperia Play app. This has two sections: Xperia Play Games (this gives you a list of all the games already installed on your phone) and More Games (this is a list of available titles for download). Sony Ericsson declared that there were over 70 titles for the Play at the time of launch. Clicking on any one of these games will take you to the Android Market, where you can pay online and download it directly to the phone.

For games developed by Sony itself, you need to access the PlayStation Pocket app. Our unit came pre-installed with Crash Bandicoot, and if you touch the tiny search button on the screen, it'll bring up a list of other available PlayStation games. At present, the list has only 5 titles, including the ever-popular MediEvil.

To double up as a gaming device, Sony Ericsson has decided to go the whole hog and cram in a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chip and an Adreno 205 GPU, along with 512 MB of RAM. Apart from slight delays while loading the game, we didn't face any trouble when it came to lags during gameplay. We also had a few problems when we downloaded games from the Android Market, which took ages to load, even on a high-speed Wi-Fi connection.

Sony's meagre offering of PlayStation titles should ideally be substantiated by allowing the Play to access the list of wonderful PSP games. Playing the PSP version of Final Fantasy VII on a phone is a good enough reason to persuade us to buy it, we think.

Some of the games like Bruce Lee and the Sims 3 barely required use of the gamepad controls, and more often than not it was easier to use the touch controls. Sony Ericsson should have more stringent guidelines on what constitutes an Xperia Play-optimised game.

Phony business

While we've been babbling about the gaming capabilities of the Xperia Play, we declined to look at the other function it's good for – being a fully fledged smartphone. Sony Ericsson makes no compromises on this aspect, and the phone is loaded with all the features you would expect from the HTC's and Samsung's that would fall into the same price bracket.

Our white unit was reminiscent of the much loved Xperia X10. It operates on a full touch interface, with physical Android buttons arranged neatly at the bottom. What doesn't help is that they're all in the wrong order, and not backlit, which makes them a pain to use in the dark. A 3.5mm headphone jack, mini USB slot, volume rocker switch and power button are the only other buttons on the exterior. You'll find a 5-megger snapper with flash on the back cover.

We couldn't resist mentioning that this is one of the few phones which allow you to change your SIM and micro SD card without taking out the battery – a small but significant advantage.

The Gingerbread Android interface has been masked by a customised skin. Billowy wallpapers, angular icons and geometric accents give the Play a snazzy look, which complement its gaming capabilities. The capacitive touch screen was smooth and responsive.

Videos streamed beautifully on Play, and we watched more than a few episodes of Family Guy on YouTube. The phone also supports MP4 and WMV video playback. The dedicated music app is pretty standard for a droid, and we liked the addition of equaliser settings. The presence of stereo speakers makes it a pleasure for music, videos and gaming, unlike the tinny mono speaker most often seen on smartphones.

The camera isn't anything to rave about, with no available scene modes and few manual settings. The lack of zooming capabilities and the missing physical power button are irritants. There is a front camera for video chats. Timescape integrates all your social networking contacts, but we're not a big fan of the app, which is often moody about syncing regularly.

Battery life, in terms of smartphone usage, gave us less than a day of juice on a full charge, which is worse than the norm. It drains further when Wi-Fi is turned on, Strangely, when used primarily for gaming purposes, the phone gives you a couple of hours of dedicated game time, which isn't too bad.

To Play or not to Play?

Getting down to a verdict about the Xperia Play is tricky business. The Play delights with its pull out gamepad, but disappoints in the lack of dedicated gaming titles. Battery drains during talktime, but impresses during gameplay. The screen is dim, but clear enough for gaming. The fact that Sony's slashed prices of the PSP 3004 only adds to the Play's woes. There are a lot of pros and cons to consider, but the bottomline is that there's no other phone as unique in its concept, and that too, associated with a leading gaming brand. Once there are more original PlayStation titles on offer and Sony Ericsson works out an extended battery life, the Xperia Play will keep your thumbs busy and your mind off work.

Love: Full-fledged gamepad with the entire range of controls

Hate: Lack of original PlayStation games

Rs 35,000

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