After a really long wait which seemed forever the Xperia Play mobile was finally launched today and I won a pair of VIP tickets for the launch party. So I pulled up my buddy Harsha and went to the event and I have to admit that the settings of the venue blew me away more than the phone did. Yeah you heard me right, the phone was well...realllyyyyyyy nice...to hold and felt classy and solid. A few seconds of just flicking through screens and pinch to zooming, I realised a bit of lag happening, so I switched to play mode and found the phone behaved like a PSP go...albeit with a smaller sized keys but for a phone it was awesome. Every time I took the phone for a go, they kept opening and giving it to me to play but I immediately told them I had to have a look at the phone itself...as a phone...well in that aspect, the Xperia PLAY didn't have anything great to offer especially for the price it's asking for. Don't take me wrong, I loved the phone...I really did...but it was just too expensive and my personal opinion is that it didn't measure up in features to that asking price.
A few things I learned about the hardware of the phone also indicated that the hardware is going to be obsolete pretty soon with only 400mb of ram. I'm pretty sure future games are going to feel a little slow on this baby and am pretty sure SE is already brewing the XperiaPLAY 2. This is such an amazing concept and will be a success among a niche crowd. Unfortunately, I'm more of a gamer and I would rather buy the NGP (or) PSP2 because it offers a lot more for a gamer.
I expected to see something mind blowing on the phone side but was quite disappointed to see even the photo app was just the stock android one and not one of those smart and wonderful interface I've used with other SE mobiles. Come on SE, you could have at least put a basic cool interface for the camera. A HUGE downer for me is the lack of HD. Not even 720p. Yes the camera is capable of HD but I don't understand why SE would avoid the HD aspect. I know it's a gaming mobile, but COME ON!!!
And a laggy feel I got kept nagging my brains so I went around and checked out at least 3-4 units and all of them had a little lag in their performance. Something I don't want to see in a brand new mobile with not even many apps running on it.
Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find someone with a HTC Desire Z in the crowd and asked them how they felt about the XperiaPLAY and their response was just what I expected, "I would not change my mobile for this one!!!" When I managed to hold the HTC Desire Z from the lovely lady who gladly handed it to me, I felt why I loved that mobile so much in the first place. It had the same solid build quality like the Xperia PLAY but when I just quickly went through the interface, it was like slicing butter with a hot knife...just silky smooth. Immediately I remembered all the features of the HTC Desire Z and was trying to compare it with the Xperia PLAY and everything in my mind went blank...because there wasn't much witht eh XperiaPLAY other than it's Playstation point. For my needs and price...here is a simple measurement of both phones laid out for everyone to understand:
So, it might seem that the HTC Desire z is the best choice given that it is now available for just £370 roughly whereas the Xperia PLAY at launch costs £500 roughly. SE can do a lot better than this, but I think they're just trying to use the different features in different versions of their Xperia line like the ARC, PRO and NEO. For example, the ARC is meant for HD video and pics, the pro is similar to the Desire Z and has a qwerty keypad and so on. My question is, if almost all these features are available in one mobile minus a couple of things like a game pad, and it costs a lot less, then that would be the smarter choice for anyone. If only SE had included some nice camera interface that might have made me lean a bit more towards the PLAY but for now I'll be playing safe by not burning a hole in my pocket and am willing to wait for the next Xperia PLAY phone to see what SE is gonna improve on!!!
As for which mobile am gonna buy, well there is just one thing that bugs me about the Desire Z, the absence of a front facing camera. I had one in my SE W980i...so it won't hurt to look for one in such an awesome phone. IF I can manage the absence of a physical keyboard, I might consider a different HTC. Let's see!!!
A few things I learned about the hardware of the phone also indicated that the hardware is going to be obsolete pretty soon with only 400mb of ram. I'm pretty sure future games are going to feel a little slow on this baby and am pretty sure SE is already brewing the XperiaPLAY 2. This is such an amazing concept and will be a success among a niche crowd. Unfortunately, I'm more of a gamer and I would rather buy the NGP (or) PSP2 because it offers a lot more for a gamer.
I expected to see something mind blowing on the phone side but was quite disappointed to see even the photo app was just the stock android one and not one of those smart and wonderful interface I've used with other SE mobiles. Come on SE, you could have at least put a basic cool interface for the camera. A HUGE downer for me is the lack of HD. Not even 720p. Yes the camera is capable of HD but I don't understand why SE would avoid the HD aspect. I know it's a gaming mobile, but COME ON!!!
And a laggy feel I got kept nagging my brains so I went around and checked out at least 3-4 units and all of them had a little lag in their performance. Something I don't want to see in a brand new mobile with not even many apps running on it.
Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find someone with a HTC Desire Z in the crowd and asked them how they felt about the XperiaPLAY and their response was just what I expected, "I would not change my mobile for this one!!!" When I managed to hold the HTC Desire Z from the lovely lady who gladly handed it to me, I felt why I loved that mobile so much in the first place. It had the same solid build quality like the Xperia PLAY but when I just quickly went through the interface, it was like slicing butter with a hot knife...just silky smooth. Immediately I remembered all the features of the HTC Desire Z and was trying to compare it with the Xperia PLAY and everything in my mind went blank...because there wasn't much witht eh XperiaPLAY other than it's Playstation point. For my needs and price...here is a simple measurement of both phones laid out for everyone to understand:
HTC Desire Z | Xperia PLAY |
Feels solid and good to hold | Feels solid and good to hold |
Little scary slide mechanism | Solid slide mechanism |
800Mhz Processor | 1Ghz Processor + Adreno GPU |
512MB RAM +1.5GB Internal Storage +Upgradeable up to 32GB | 400MB RAM (Including internal storage) + Upgradeable up to 32GB |
5MP Camera and NO front facing camera | 5.1MP Camera + 0.3MP front facing camera |
720p HD Video recording | No HD Video Recording. Just normal Video recording. |
Sense UI is just THE BEST!!! | Timescape slows down the phone and without it it’s pretty much like stock android. |
Slide out qwerty keyboard | Slide out PS game pad |
Connected to HTC’s cloud computing. | NA |
Android 2.2 (Froyo) | Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) |
Can use DLNA to share media content to TV. | NA |
Preloaded Google Maps | Normal Google Maps that takes time to download each time. |
Hopefully will get Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and other updates in future since HTC is known for providing updates although not very quick. | Might never get updated to the next version of Android. (Eg: Xperia X10). |
So, it might seem that the HTC Desire z is the best choice given that it is now available for just £370 roughly whereas the Xperia PLAY at launch costs £500 roughly. SE can do a lot better than this, but I think they're just trying to use the different features in different versions of their Xperia line like the ARC, PRO and NEO. For example, the ARC is meant for HD video and pics, the pro is similar to the Desire Z and has a qwerty keypad and so on. My question is, if almost all these features are available in one mobile minus a couple of things like a game pad, and it costs a lot less, then that would be the smarter choice for anyone. If only SE had included some nice camera interface that might have made me lean a bit more towards the PLAY but for now I'll be playing safe by not burning a hole in my pocket and am willing to wait for the next Xperia PLAY phone to see what SE is gonna improve on!!!
As for which mobile am gonna buy, well there is just one thing that bugs me about the Desire Z, the absence of a front facing camera. I had one in my SE W980i...so it won't hurt to look for one in such an awesome phone. IF I can manage the absence of a physical keyboard, I might consider a different HTC. Let's see!!!
