Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Preview

Announcement due February 2011
7th February 2011

For more information click here

Sony Ericsson have had a good start to 2011 with the announcement of the Xperia Arc, an elegant and powerful Android phone that shows that not all smartphones have to look alike. Their second announcement this year is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, which as the name suggests is an Android handset aimed at gamers.

Android phones are great for running games, often featuring very powerful processors and high-quality displays. One problem has been control - a touchscreen is fiddly for a lot of games and only a minority of Android phones have any sort of keypad.

The Xperia Play basically substitutes a slide-out keyboard with dedicated PlayStation-style gaming controls, mixed with Sony's know-how in the market to come up with something quite different. Closed, this looks like an ordinary and very versatile Android phone.. open it up and the differences are immediately obvious.

We don't know much about the technical specifications of the Xperia Play at present, but we will only have to wait a few days to find out full details from Sony Ericsson who will officially launch the phone on 13th February, the day before the annual Mobile World Congress event kicks off in Barcelona.

In the meantime, this slightly gruesome video (a version of which was aired on the Superbowl) might prove a useful distraction..