Hot on the heels of the brand spanking new PS Vita (which the Gadget Helpline just this week unboxed), Sony is allegedly working on a follow-up to the “Playstation Phone” – the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY.
A website named Concept Phone is bragging that it has the scoop, revealing a concept rendering and even some specifications which are said to support the Xperia PLAY 2, which would now fall under the singular Sony branding after the partnership with Ericsson was totally bought out last week. The original Xperia PLAY which was launched back in very early April 2011 combined the functions of a mobile phone with a slide-out control panel for dedicated gaming. It featured a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor, with 4” HD touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera and came running Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
CP reports that the Xperia PLAY 2 will up the game, bringing with it a massively improved 1.5GHz Snapdragon CPU, 4.3” HD display with impressive 1280 x 720 resolution, 8-megapixel camera and newest Android, version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Looks good on paper, but concept image however leaves a little more to be desired..
What we see is a bland and simplistic handset design, which features four capacitive buttons built into the hardware. Although this feature is redundant if the gaming gadget comes with Android ICS and this isn’t at all complimented by the minimalistic slide out control pad which features just a D-pad, four action buttons and what appears to be a menu button, alongside select and start buttons – a NES controller is still more stylish than this set up. Sony logo, Xperia branding and Playstation symbols add a touch of potential legitimacy. But it resembles something like the Xperia PLAY wannabe from Gametel that we saw late last year. We’re not entirely sold..
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