Xperia Play...

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, codenamed Zeus, is an upcoming handheld gaming smartphone being developed by Sony Ericsson. Under the Xperia smartphone brand running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), the device will be the first device to be part of the PlayStation Certified program which means that it is able to play PlayStation Suite games. The device was originally thought to carry the PlayStation branding, though this has been clarified to be a certification of being part of the PlayStation Certified program.

The device was revealed officially for the first time in a Super Bowl ad on Sunday, February 6, 2011. On February 13, 2011, at MWC 2011, it was announced that the device would be shipping globally in March 2011, with a launch lineup of around 50 software titles. In the US, the Xperia Play it will initially be available only on the Verizon network. In the UK, carriers O₂, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Three have confirmed that they intend to stock the handset.

The device is a horizontally sliding phone with its original form resembling the Xperia X10 while the slider below resembles the slider of the PSP Go. The slider features a D-pad in an indented area on the left side, a set of standard PlayStation buttons (, ,  and ) in an indented area on the right, a long rectangular Touchpad in the middle, start and select buttons in an indented area on the bottom right corner, an option button on the bottom left corner as well as two shoulder buttons (L and R) on the back of the device. The original form, has a long rectangular touch screen, as well as four buttons below a back button, an option button, a home button and a search button. The device features a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a Qualcomm Adreno 205 GPU, a display measuring 4.0 inches (100 mm) (854 × 480), a 5 megapixel camera, 512 MB RAM, 512 MB internal storage, and a microUSB connector. It supports microSD cards, as opposed to the Memory Stick variants used in PSP consoles.

The device will feature the Gingerbread (Android 2.3) firmware, with early prototypes running Android 2.2, and it is supposedly to be one of two successors to the PlayStation Portable being released this year. In addition, the device will apparently run on something known as "Z-System"; though it is unclear what that entails, Sony Ericsson has filed several trademarks for "Z-System".

The device is said to feature games graphically within the range of similar portable devices. The device will play these games via an application currently known as the PlayStation Suite, which changes the interface of the device from that of a phone to the XrossMediaBar closely resembling the PlayStation Portable. The device will also get a dedicated area in the Android Market, specifically for games for the system allowing users to download games on the go. Titles shown off internally on the device, include older PlayStation games as well as new PSP games including God of War and LittleBigPlanet together with plans for future games incorporating augmented reality similar to Invizimals. The prices of the games are also expected to be under USD$10 which is considerably less than the PlayStation Portable's price range of less than USD$40 for games.

Sony Ericsson x10

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is a high-end smartphone designed by Sony Ericsson in the Xperia series. It is the first Sony Ericsson smartphone to run the Android operating system. The phone was shipped running Android 1.6 but an upgrade to Android 2.1 was made available starting from 31 October 2010, with a gradual rollout amongst global kits. Xperia X10 family will not receive upgrade to Froyo or beyond.

The phone features an 8.1 MP camera and a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. The screen supports NTSC DVD wide-screen resolution. The phone runs Android OS, which enables the use of apps available in the Android Market. Connection speeds up to HSDPA (3G+) are possible with the handset. The UX platform gives Xperia X10 one application to lift together all the user's different communications, Timescape, and one to lift together all the users media, Mediascape.

An Xperia X10 functions as a camera phone, including text messaging, a portable media player, and an Internet client with e-mail, web browsing and Wi-Fi connectivity. The user interface is built around the device's touchscreen, including a virtual keyboard rather than a physical one (Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro goes with a physical keyboard). Third-party applications are available from Android Market, which launched in 2008 and now (20 November 2010) has over 200,000 apps. These apps have diverse functionalities, including games, reference, GPS navigation, social networking and advertising for television shows, films, and celebrities.

The Xperia X10 was released in one of its two home countries, Japan, on April 1, 2010 and has become the quickest-selling smartphone for the carrier NTT DoCoMo. The overall response has been positive for the hardware, camera and screen. However, there were negative comments about the lack of support for Android 2.1 until it was released later that year. The Xperia X10 has since been upgraded to Android 2.1 on October 31, 2010, which improved the battery life greatly.

The display is a wide screen, aspect ratio 16:9, with FWVGA resolution of 480 x 854 pixels, covered by a capacitive layer that is designed to detect touch by fingers. The 8.1 megapixel camera has a 16x digital zoom, image stabilizer, auto-focus, geo-tagging, smile detection and face detection. The camera can be accessed either through the touchscreen menu or by a separate camera button on the lower part of the right edge. It can also record video, and has a LED light for use in poor light conditions. The Xperia X10 has as a 3-axis accelerometer and built in GPS, and a lug for attaching a strap.

The hardware is capable of limited multi-touch functionality, it can track multiple touches, provided the X and Y are separated for each of the touches. The firmware to enable this functionality was first released in Japan via DoCoMo, and then to the rest of the world.

The Xperia X10 is referred to as a quad-band telephone as it covers all four GSM frequency bands, but it is also a dual mode telephone as it also covers three or four UMTS frequency bands too, depending on the market. The Xperia X10 is sold worldwide and therefore has both common frequency band layouts; these variants of the phone are internally called the Xperia X10a and the Xperia X10i by Sony Ericsson. The Xperia X10a sells in South America; the Xperia X10i sells in Asia, Europe and Oceania; both variants are sold in North America and Australia. The Xperia X10a is used by AT&T in the USA; Telstra in Australia; Rogers Wireless, and Bell in Canada. The Xperia X10i on the other hand, is used by T-Mobile in the USA; Wind Mobile and Mobilicity in Canada; Optus and VHA (under both the Vodafone and 3 brands) in Australia; Singtel, Starhub and M1 in Singapore. In Japan, the telephone is called the SO-01B and sold by operator NTT Docomo, using the Xperia X10a configuration.