Just in case you do manage to tear yourself away from the excitement that is the Xperia Play retail packaging leak you might want to check out the video below. It’s from the Engadget Show, specifically the part where they talk about, and play with, the Xperia Play. If you haven’t already seen it it’s well worth a look.
Given that the PlayStation phone has been leaked so many times that the only people not actually talking about it yet are Sony Ericsson themselves you could be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing left to leak. Well you would be correct in a sense because now that pretty much all the interesting stuff has leaked we’re now moving onto the ‘fluff’.
From All About Phones I proudly present the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Retail Booth!
Yes they do have arcs on top, but these are apparently the real deal retail material that will be used in shops to sell the device. At this stage, the point when retail packaging is being leaked, the Xperia Play had better be pretty damned good.
Another day another piece of the PlayStation Phone puzzle falls into place. Today we have the announcement of PlayStation Suite, Sony’s new content platform that will service all manner of handheld devices.
Basically it will be an official PlayStation store run by Sony that will offer games for devices like the PlayStation Phone, but also tablets and dedicated handheld gaming devices e.g. PlayStation Portable. Sony made mention of PlayStation Suite being ‘hardware neutral‘.
Sony will be running the whole shebang, no doubt hoping that it can attract some of the bigger names in game design to bring their titles to their new platform. It’s certainly the biggest move Android gaming will ever have seen anyway.
In terms of the finer details like game titles, pricing, etc none of that is obviously known at this stage. However, one interesting tidbit is that PlayStation Suite is going to need Android 2.3 to run so it looks like the Xperia arc is in and older Sony Ericsson handsets are out.
Engadget have managed to score themselves an Xperia Play and have been putting it through its paces in a rather extensive preview.
They looks at various aspects of the handsets, mostly focusing on the hardware, but there is some mention made of the software. There was an interesting comparison to the PSP Go, fleeting as it was, that highlighted some interesting differences.
It’s well worth a read so make sure you check it out.
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CES is well out of the way now and so far little more has been seen of Sony Ericsson’s new Android flagship, the Xperia arc. Have no fear though because HDBlog.it have managed to score two arc handsets (lucky buggers) and have put them though their paces on video.
The video pretty much speak for themselves so sit back and enjoy:
Sony Ericsson’s Q4 result are in and, as often seems to be the case of late, it’s something of a mixed bag.
On the down side the company failed to beat market expectations as it only managed to turn a pre-tax profit of 35 million euros. If the market wasn’t excited about Sony Ericsson’s performance the company still managed to put a brave face on things pointing out, rather astutely it has to be said, that even with the figure lower than hoped for it did still represent the fourth consecutive quarter that the company had managed to actually have a profit.
There was some better news on the Android front though with the revelation that since the first Xperia Android handset (the X10) was launched Sony Ericsson have managed to shift a rather impressive 9 million units of all their Android powered Xperia line e.g. X10, X10 Mini, etc. Do remember that these were handsets saddled with outdated software so getting 9 million of them into customers’ hand sis pretty impressive …
…only this 9 million figure is the total shipped to retailers, not customers. Even so it is still good going and with the Xperia arc and Vivaz 2 looking like strong players for 2011 it can, hopefully, only get better.
There has been a fair amount of speculation as to Sony Ericsson’s plans regarding Windows Phone 7. At one point there was even a rumour that a handset was in the works. However, that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case according to an interview Sony Ericsson’s head of amrketing, Steve Walker, gave to Pocket-lint.
In the interview Mr Walker essentially said that Sony Ericsson was doing pretty much nothing with Windows Phone 7 at the moment other than keeping its options open.
We’ve done a lot of work with Microsoft over the years. We’ve launched a number of 6.xx products, but we made a decision not to bring a product to market in the first wave. We absolutely maintain to keep an open mind towards Windows Phone 7. We continue to engage in a relationship with Microsoft, but we haven’t made any concrete announcement about when and how we would introduce Windows Phone 7 into the portfolio.
We shouldn’t limit ourselves to one opportunity, but we aren’t yet ready to make any specific announcement about products. At this moment in time, there is clearly a galvanizing within the industry around Android as a creditable alternative to what’s out there, and we think that’s a good thing.
Android is a clear and proven seller, customers want it and it has a firm place in the minds of the public. The same can’t be said of Windows Phone 7 … yet. It’s also worth pointing out that Sony Ericsson is a relatively small player in the grand scheme of things, they simply don’t release the same volume of high-end handsets that Samsung, for example, does. Hence pretty much every product from Sony Ericsson has to do well and they can’t really afford to take a gamble like that at the moment. At least that’s what the thinking at Sony Ericsson seems to indicate.
The lack of multi-touch must surely rank near the top of the list of biggest annoyances with the X10, perhaps it is even at the top. At any rate we were told that multi-touch would be coming to the X10 after all, albeit in a limited fashion.
NTT DoCoMo has become the first in the world to offer its customers the update. The limited multi-touch support is pretty much confined to pinch and zoom gestures so no rotating gestures, etc sadly. It’s also worth pointing out that multi-touch on the X10 is not guaranteed to work with all third party apps.
Despite these limitations something is better than nothing right?
In the latest video in their series on the Xperia arc Sony Ericsson have released a hands-on video that takes a snapshot of the camera (what a pun!).
The camera in the Xperia arc has been given a bit of a boost over the X10 on a number of fronts. For example, the sensor is more sensitive to light with a bigger aperture on the cards too. The speed of the camera has been increased too with less time between shots and Sony Ericsson claim that this will improve further before the official launch.
The interface has also been tweaked so that the user has more control over certain features e.g. the flash.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (unfortunately abbreviated to SEX Play) has once again popped up in video making it undoubtedly the worst kept secret in the history of the mobile industry.
This time around we travel to the glamorous setting of a local McDonalds to watch an overview of the handset’s hardware. In the second video there is a bit more attention paid to the shoulder buttons and their usage and there is also some interaction with the software.
[via BGR]
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