The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play: Where Do You Want To Take Your Gaming Today?
by Brian Dipert on August 8, 2011 1:26 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Sony
- Android
- Xperia Play
- Mobile
UBM TechInsights conducted a teardown of the Xperia Play in late May, based on a Canadian-sourced unit and slightly ahead of the gaming phone's U.S. production launch. The companion coverage by UBM sibling publication EE Times goes into more photographic detail than does TechInsight's web page (but then again, TechInsights wants to sell reports, so all is forgiven), and I commend EE Times' writeup to your inspection. In it, you'll garner an exhaustive parts list inside the Xperia Play, of which I want to focus on only a few key components.
First and foremost, consider the applications processor, Qualcomm's MSM8x55 1 GHz 'Snapdragon' SoC, which befitting its 'MSM' prefix contains an integrated cellular modem. In the GSM-tailored variant of the Xperia Play dissected by UBM TechInsights; that SoC was the MSM8255. My Verizon CDMA-targeted Xperia Play instead includes the MSM8655. Qualcomm's website neatly spells out the differences between them, also including the modem-less (and GPS-less) APQ8055, all S2-class SoCs per Qualcomm's recently unveiled rebranding campaign.
Also embedded on the MSM8x55 die is the Adreno 205 graphics core. A notable percentage of the negative feedback I've seen on the Xperia Play concerns the SoC; specifically, cellphone enthusiasts are disappointed in Sony Ericsson's seeming 'trailing-edge' component selection. They expected to see a dual-core processor from Qualcomm, Nvidia or another supplier, and/or a SoC based on Qualcomm's latest Krait microarchitecture (S4 SoC). Sorry, but I don't buy that argument for a second, no matter that the MSM8x55 archaically dates from last fall's HTC Desire HD.
I'm an engineer, by training and by trade. As such, I know that there's no such thing as a black-and-white decision, only shades-of-grey discernment, and that component selection made for a particular project will likely not apply to the next design in the pipeline. Absolute performance is not the sole criteria for picking an IC; cost, power consumption, board space, sourcing options and volume availability, and development tools maturity are often equal in importance...if not greater, as long as performance is 'good enough'. Take a look at the benchmarking section that follows, and I think you'll agree that the MSM8x55 is an adequate candidate partcularly given the system's target screen resolution, form factor (therefore battery size), price tag and other criteria.
I'm less sanguine about the internal memories' capacities. 512 MBytes of RAM seems scant, particularly given the memory-intensive games that the Xperia Play is chartered with tackling. However, RAM deficiences will largely only impact the handset's ability to simultaneously multitask-juggle multiple concurrently running applications. 1 GByte of embedded flash memory, on the other hand, is a far less acceptable allocation, particularly considering that only 400 MBytes' worth of it is user-accessible.
Theoretically, at least, the local nonvolatile storage capacity can be supplemented by a microSD card (up to 32 GBytes in size on the Xperia Play), an ability that came with Android 2.2 'Froyo' and its encrypted external-storage support. To wit, the Xperia Play bundles a 4 GByte microSD card. However, to date I remain unimpressed by both Google's and third party developers' embrace of the potential for installing and moving programs to external storage.
Insufficient local storage capacity is perhaps my biggest beef with my Nexus One (512 MBytes total, 190 MBytes user accessible, in that particular case). Through multiple upgrade iterations of both O/S and Google-branded and -included applications, local storage has been slowly whittled away to the point that I can only install a few third-party programs before available memory dips to 20 MBytes or less, the O/S starts complaining that 'phone storage space is getting low', the phone abruptly stops receiving new emails, etc. Although the Xperia Play has a bit more than twice the user-accessible local storage of the Nexus One, I fear that many Xperia Play owners will sooner-or-later suffer similar frustrations.
34 Comments
View All Comments
RoninX - Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - link
Maybe they should just release a 3G/4G version of the Vita that makes calls.Then you would get by far the best portable gaming experience without having to carry two devices.
SimKill - Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - link
But then battery life would go to the dogs.etobare - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
There you make it sound as if xperia play didn't have access to android non-xperia play optimized games... i concur with much of the review but that may lead to confusionMike1111 - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
A gaming smartphone with fewer, more expensive and worse looking games compared to iOS devices? Why even bother. It's a niche market at best. To have a chance in the mainstream market the successor must have PS Vita-like hardware, graphics and kick-ass games. And should Apple ever decide to make an adequate Bluetooth profile available for (analog) gamepads then the dedicated gaming smartphone market is dead anyway.lowlymarine - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
I just finished a run of BrowserMark on my Captivate (AT&T Galaxy S) and got a score of over 71,000. Admittedly I'm running at a fairly modest overclock of 1.2 GHz, but unless each one of those 200 MHz are imbued with pure magic, there's no way the likes of the Droid 3 and the Atrix should be doing worse. Similar with Sunspider - my 3193ms result (yes, on 0.9) beats out even the fastest device you've tested. I'm not using Firefox Mobile or something either; this is all with the stock AOSP browser.I'm just curious as to why there's the massive discrepancy in browser performance. My Linpack scores are, while still nearly 3 times what you've got for the SGS (largely attributable to the difference between Gingerbread and Eclair, I'm sure), no where near those of the dual-core powerhouses. I know the second core won't really help them on Sunspider et al., but certainly it shouldn't be hurting them?
Death666Angel - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
Are you using other/newer kernels and roms? They usually add nice boosts to those benchmarks by either having better drivers, better optimizations or just fewer active programs. :-)Vepsa - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
I considered getting a Xperia Play, but I decided against since I kinda like having more than 512MB of RAM on my phone. The bulk doesn't bother me and nor does the SoC since I have the same one in my Droid Incredible 2. If the phone had had 1GB of RAM & 2GB+ of app storage I would have probably gotten it. The only thing that will get more games made for them is if more are sold since its an open API.StormyParis - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
Did someone just receive a new digital camera ? Is there an epidemic of photographic logorrhea I'm not aware of ? Are Ars writers paid a lot more for each picture ? Or is it about the page views ?One could easily cut half the pictures in the article (first page), redo some (you can put 3 phones in a single picture for comparison, yessir....).
This article is giving me a feeling akin to PCmag's infamous "slideshows"
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
Fixed :)We have no internal mandates for picture or page count, sometimes it's easier just to string a bunch of images together rather than toss them in a gallery but I've done the latter here at your request :)
Take care,
Anand
StormyParis - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
Thanks. Am I the only one bothered when there are so many pics in an article ? because, frankly, the numerous screenshots and charts on the following pages also bother me. With Anandtech's already narrow, heavily paginated format, there's lots of scrolling involved already... I find more than 1 pic/page a pain, except when the pics are *really* needed... which they are not, for example, to report a *one-number* test result. It gets even worse when reading the article on my phone or tablet.Personally, I simply jumped to the conclusion after a few pages. I find the galleries you put in the first coupl of pages the best trade off: really motivated readers can see all the pictures, the rest of us can read the article without kilometers of scrolling. <ripoff source="Arrested Development ">It's a nice way to satisfy the "buy" crowd and the "curious" crowd, and we're all buy/curious </ripoff>