SE Xperia Play prototype gets a thorough review

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last month, you know that the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play prototype previews first appeared in a couple of Chinese websites. But here's a more Western-type preview of the device, courtesy of Engadget.com.

There’s not much news as we knew almost everything about the device. The earlier Chinese previews were pretty thorough. The Xperia Play, or the PlayStation phone as it is commonly dubbed, rocks the latest version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread running on a muscular 1Ghz Qualcomm MSM8655 chipset. And let’s not forget the gorgeous 4” LCD screen relying on a Bravia engine for various imaging and video enhancements.

 

Few user interface improvements over the stock Android experience have been added here and there. For example, just like on the Xperia Arc, the Xperia Play let’s you pinch anywhere on the homescreen, which will group all the widgets in one screen, clicking on a widgets would take you to its homescreen.Also, when tested, the prototype’s 5MP snapper at the back of the device only recorded WVGA videos, which corroborates with the earlier previews. We really hope that Sony Ericsson will allow for 720p recording in the final product.

The reviewer tried a couple of unofficially emulated games from the original PlayStation and GameBoy Advance and reportedly everything worked fine - from the performance down to the assigning of the extended hardware gaming controls (except for the touchpads). We bet the experience with the original PSP emulator will be superior.

The reviewer then summoned the expertise of an experienced gamer and he reports that the XPERIA Play is not balanced as well as the PSP Go with the top being heavier than the lower part. Also he found the shoulder buttons being a wee bit thinner than he'd like (the PSP Go is substantially thicker than the XPERIA Play).

Sony Ericsson is expected to announce the XPERIA PLAY at the MWC 2011 in February. Still, you didn't mind looking at some fresh photos of the Xperia Play now, did you?

Now Get Facebook for Your Phone

Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren't used by most people around the world.

Few days ago a new mobile app was launched to bring Facebook to the most popular mobile phones around the world. The Facebook for Feature Phones app works on more than 2,500 devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and other manufacturers, and it was built in close cooperation with Snaptu. The app provides a better Facebook experience for our most popular features, including an easier-to-navigate home screen, contact synchronization, and fast scrolling of photos and friend updates.

Facebook also wanted to make it available to as many people as possible. Similar to the 0.facebook.com site, we've worked with mobile operators from around the world to let you try this without paying for any data charges. The 14 mobile operators listed below are offering free data access when using the new Facebook mobile app during the first 90 days after they launch.

During the next few months, Facebook plan to make the app available through more carriers in other countries so you can have a great mobile Facebook experience no matter what device you use.

Samsung Chat 350 Touchscreen handset with slider QWERTY keypad

Samsung Chat 350 is the latest mobile phone launched by the company that comes with decent list of features. Physically the handset measures 100 X 52 X 16mm in size and comes with 2.4 inches of touchscreen display that is capable of supporting 262K colours along with resolution of 240 X 320 pixels.
There is a slide out QWERTY keypad in this phone which facilitates convenient and fast message typing and thus proves to be a good choice for all the messaging freaks. For taking care of your entertainment quotient even on the go, the phone comes packed with decent list of multimedia features which includes FM radio with recording, Music player, Video player and 2 MP camera. Dedicated buttons for social networking and music are also present in the phone.
Connectivity in Samsung Chat 350 is offered through Bluetooth 2.1 and microUSB 2.0 port. The battery of the phone delivers 12 hours of talk time and its microSD slot facilitates memory expansion of up to 8GB. The phone will be available in the market for an approximate price tag of Rs. 5000.

Motorola Glam India's First Dual-Sim (GSM+CDMA) Android Phone to Launch Soon

India to soon get its first dual SIM (GSM+CDMA) Android Smartphone. Motorola to launch first dual-simAndroid phone in India next week. The Motorola XT800 Glam  is a 3G enabled Dual SIM/Dual Band Android Smartphone. The Motorola Glam supports GSM and one CDMA slot.

Motorola XT800 was first launched in China last year, and then landed in Korea. An ungraded version XT800+ with 1 Ghz processor and Android 2.2 has already reached China.

The Motorola Glam aka XT800 expected to launch with Android 2.2. The specification of Motorola Glam has CDMA 800/1900, Dual mode, dual standby, GSM 850/900/1800/1900. It has a 3.7-inch screen with 854x480 touchscreen and phone also has an HDMI-out port, GPS and a 5 megapixel camera. Bluetooth, Wi-fi, 3G, EDGE and GPRS round up the connectivity options for the phone which is supposedly coming pre-loaded with Android 2.2 Froyo.

It powered with TI OMAP3430 550 Mhz processor, 256 MB RAM.

The price of Motorola XT800 Glam in India is expecting around Rs. 23,000 but may be down to compete in market.