Xperia Play


finty

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Anyone bought one yet?

Just got one off eBay. It should be here tomorrow. I know they arn't the most powerful android phone but the game buttons sealed the deal for me, can't wait to get play those old PSX and N64 games on the go lol. This is my first 'open' handheld since the gp2x so it is quite a big step up :).
 
How much did you pay?

I'm interested in it, as the controls look great for a phone (probably the only smartphone I'd buy right now) but it's rather pricey imo.
 
Got it for £360. Not too bad as most were going for around 400.

I know what you mean none of the other phones out there were that appealing to me. I mean the iphone is cool and all but I know I couldn't put up with touch controls for too long.
 
Sweet. Really want one of these things. I'm interested to know how the battery life holds up and how comfortable the controls are for classic games, don't suppose you can give a quick review after you'd had a muck around with it?
 
I'm waiting for the Verizon version to hit the States.
 
It only arrived about half an hour ago but so far so good. I haven't loaded up any emulators yet but I've been playing the included crash bandicoot game and I have to say the buttons are very good, maybe a little small but nothing I can't get used too. I've saw a few reviewers complain about the device being too big and the screen too dim. Both points I would have to disagree with. It is the perfect size for carrying about and gaming, any smaller would be impractical, for me anyway. And yes the screen is hard to view in direct sunlight, although not impossible, but I don't think I've used a handheld that didn't suffer from this in some way. The only hicup so far is that it won't sync with my gmail account. Oh and the menus were a bit choppy when I first turned it on but they are smooth as silk now :) .

I'll play around with a few emulators and report back, even though we all know it performs well there are plenty of videos on youtube showing this.

EDIT: Oh and sound quality is excellent for a mobile.
 
They are a bit shite tbh, really wish they had of found a way to include at least psp style nubs. I've only used them for about an hour playing Modern Combat 2 though and I've read they take a bit of getting used to. Unfortunately none of the emulators support them yet although I hear that's in the works.

Mostly been playing with N64oid and FPSE. Two excellent emulators, fpse is close to perfect with all the games I've tried so far. N64oid is very fast although it has sound issues and the odd bit of slowdown but is very very playable. Haven't ventured any further back in gaming history yet lol but I'm sure most systems from before PSX/N64 are emulated well.

Loving how flash is supported in android too, very complete browsing and streaming experience. Oh and RockPlayer rocks my world lol.
 
finty said:
They are a bit shite tbh, really wish they had of found a way to include at least psp style nubs. I've only used them for about an hour playing Modern Combat 2 though and I've read they take a bit of getting used to. Unfortunately none of the emulators support them yet although I hear that's in the works.

Mostly been playing with N64oid and FPSE. Two excellent emulators, fpse is close to perfect with all the games I've tried so far. N64oid is very fast although it has sound issues and the odd bit of slowdown but is very very playable. Haven't ventured any further back in gaming history yet lol but I'm sure most systems from before PSX/N64 are emulated well.

Loving how flash is supported in android too, very complete browsing and streaming experience. Oh and RockPlayer rocks my world lol.
How is battery with using emus? I'd imagine they'd sap it fairly fast.
 
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I'm hearing 5 1/2 hours play time as the official figure, which sounds really shitty to me (it's more than I usually get out of my Caanoo, admittedly, but then, I don't need my Caanoo to make phone calls). Presumably that's for the official games that you can download via the marketplace, and maybe the battery lasts longer if you're playing 8 and 16 bit games. Bah, modern electronics... :rolleyes:

EDIT: To be fair, one of the pre-loaded "5 1/2 hour" games is Crash Bandicoot, which I'm sure uses up a good deal more juice than, say, Sonic 2. I guess it's hard to compare like with like until someone really puts the thing to the test. Any Xperia Play owners going to do an all-day 16-bit marathon and see how long it can play the classics? For science! B)
 
SONY said:
[media]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=o1PY0GdsR2k[/media]
Cool story bro.

Battery life is actually better than I thought it would be. I mean I'm in the habit of charging my mobile every night but even with heavy use (N64oid for hours, bit of browsing, Modern Combat etc.) it still usually has over 10% by the time I put it on the charge. Plus standby seems to use very little power, last night for example I was heading over to my mates house around eight and noticed the battery warning indicator said 18%, checked again on my way home at half 12 and it was still on 18% and that was with N64oid running in the background. Can't put an exact figure on play time though, never pay that much attention.

One thing that's getting on my nerves is not having the ability to reduce the number of home screens. I know I can use launcher pro but then I can't use the SE widgets :( . Oh and not being able to set a full image as a background even though it matches he resolution of the phone, it keeps making me crop it. Two minor complaints though, other than that everything's great.

EDIT: Forgot to mention after more playtime with the 'analogues' I have gotten a bit better but it is wildly hard to be accurate with them. In modern combat for example they have a tendency to go down even when I'm pushing up and the aim will move slightly when you lift your thumb off them. Probably has something to do with the way I'm resting my thumbs but if FPSs are the reason you're considering a Play just don't lol. Or at least try them out first (FPSs on phones are kind of retarded anyway). Still no updates on emulators supporting them, It would be nice to have the option of using them in N64oid for actions that need accurate analogue input (firing the cannon in Mario 64) but it is possible to use the touch screen for this and it works well.
 
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I've seen a few of these go for £280-£300 on eBay. Makes me sad but that's a good cheap smart phone for someone :).
 
I thought the whole point of PlayStation certified was going to be physical game pads, touch screen buttons are shite. Can't wait for the Tegra2 Xperia play though :D.

Antone know if I would have to do anything special to get 3g to work or is it on out of the box? My mobile internet seems stupidly slow, compared it to my sisters iphone and it was taking over two minutes longer to load pages, with the two devices sitting right beside each other on the same network. A mate was saying that mine is probably connecting to 2g instead of 3g as I've had the same sim for about 5 or 6 years. Any truth in that?
 
as youve discovered and as the previous post says, older sim cards dont support 3g. your phone should automatically connect to the 3g network when the signal is available, and only drop on to the gsm (2g) signal when not available. if your pay as you go you need to ask your operator to send you a new sim, you'll still keep your old phone number though.
 
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