Sony Ericsson Xperia Play on Orange Tariffs

" Next is the sound, and WOW! What can I say about this? It’s loud and very good, after coming from a Desire HD where the sound is somewhat questionable, this thing is a breath of fresh air. Its loud and it’s clear. I also love the included sound effects/ringtones and alerts, they are also crisp and loud and also very pleasant."

"Our only frustrations with the gaming implementation on the Play both concern storage. By default all new game titles are installed to the phone storage rather than the included 8GB microSD card. After installing a dozen games or so we were alerted that the phone had low memory and then spent ten minutes or so manually moving the app's data across to the memory card. Alerted to the problem we went hunting for an option to save directly to the SD card being installing more games, but to no avail. The 8GB microSD card is also on the stingy side; after installing the games and transferring some music and videos across we filled this space in no time." 8/10

"The PlayStation Phone could certainly suck up your time, but not everyone will appreciate the pocket space it requires." 4/5 stars

"The smartphone has excellent controls and a smooth gaming experience, but the XPERIA Play will ultimately live or die by its exclusive games content." 3.8/5 stars

"The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is a great alternative for the serious mobile gamer who is tired of touch-screen controls. The physical, tactile buttons on the Play do provide a more immersive gameplay experience. However, the touch-sensitive circles are just not as responsive as we would like, and do not replace the precision of actual joysticks. We don't think it's time for serious gamers to give up their Nintendo DSes or PSPs just yet. " 3.5/5 stars

"The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play maxes out at WVGA video at 30 fps. Most high-end smartphones offer at least 720p nowadays, some even probing Full HD video. The XPERIA Play seems to disagree though. Gaming is the key here and it seems WVGA video is enough for this droid."

"It’s a shame that the 4-inch 854 x 480 display found on the Play isn’t quite as adept as the 4.2-inch display on the Arc. It is vibrant enough, even if the whites are a little yellow, but it seems to lack brightness overall. This is something of a problem if you plan to be playing games next to the pool, or just sat at the back of the bus. The screen really needs to be brighter to cope with gaming in brighter conditions and that’s a serious drawback for a device designed to be so visually engaging." 3.5/5 stars

"We found battery life a little lacking... Our overall impression (from admittedly limited testing) is that this will clearly not be an endurance smartphone because of its software overhead, but Sony Ericsson's promises of five and a half hours of continuous gameplay seem well within reach."

"Toting a five-megapixel camera, the Xperia Play can produce beautiful images. Unfortunately, once again it suffers from inconsistent software muddying the offering." 3/5 stars

"Assembling a fine stack of hardware is all well and good, but reliable software is the mortar that holds those bricks together, gluing them into a compelling, entertaining gaming device. To stretch that already-stretched analogy further, the Xperia Play feels like a brick wall held together by toothpaste. " 2.5/5 stars