[Ben]

I've been reading a hands-on with the Xperia Play (http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/review/2011/02/14/Sony-Ericsson-Xperia-Play-Hands-On/p1) and, despite it being positive, I'm less enthusiastic about it now than I was before...

If you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks (or months...?) this is Sony Ericsson's answer to the Nokia N-Gage

Pause for laughter to end

No, no, of course it's much more an answer to the iPod Touch and iPhone's success in mobile gaming, but the integration of a gaming pad definitely drums up N-Gage soul.

The main problem with the Xperia Play seems to be that it's just another high-end Android smartphone but with a slide-out keypad. A nice one, by the sound of it, but the specs of the phone (1GHz Snapdragon with 512MB RAM) aren't much to get excited about. Surely it'd be better to launch this new gaming phone with something like NVIDIA's Tegra 2? I suppose it should be out soon, but it feels like mobiles are about to take another leap forward and this handset will be on the back foot.

[Hands0n]

This device seems to be yet another outlet for their back catalogue of PSOne and PS2 games!

I can't but help feel that it is a novelty and will sell to a few. I just cannot see its mass appeal. The kids are not going to be flocking in droves down to Game stores to buy these for £stupidMoney. Perhaps if SE are going to bang these out for under £100 there may be a slightly larger market. But if they're true to form and punt these out at close to £300 or more the handset will be a stinky failure.

[Ben]

I think you're right, at a low-enough price there's no reason why this couldn't do well. Perhaps they should have gone more budget?

I like the idea of physical buttons but as price goes up the iPod Touch and iPhone have this space so well licked.

[Hands0n]

Well, I've finally had my hands on one of these, plus two other SE handsets that are launched at MWC in Barcelona this past week. I'm posting my thoughts in this section of Talk3G.