[DISCUSS] Is this the best phone ever or what? (with mini review)

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Seriously, I love this phone. I got it 2 days ago and i can't take my hands off it.

I'm 32 years old (yea yea getting old now), and was brought up on computer games. This phone makes me remember just how good the old megadrive/genesis/snes games were compared to the (mostly) crappy indie games that we see these days. I've fondly been playing Sonic, Mario, Super Star Wars, Streets of Rage and a whole host of others flawlessly on this little beauty. It's an emulation dream come true.

The N64 emulator lags a little bit for me, but mostly it's just occasional sound skipping, it is certainly still more than playable, although the control mapping could be a little bit easier. I'm hoping a MAME emulator will be released that supports all the old mame games and not just the capcom games. (Anyone can tell me if there is one already or one coming out?)


Some fears i had for the phone before i purchased were these -

- Worried it would be too bulky
- Worried about the screen auto dim feature and not being able to turn it off
- Worried about the battery life
- Worried about the hardware being outdated before it even hit the shelves


- Well, the phone is bulkier than alot of other phones, but it is still slim enough to easily slip in and out your pocket. I didn't look at the phone before i ordered it, i just jumped in and ordered it off the net and hope it was what i wanted (or i could send it back within 7 days to get a refund). Overall i am very happy with the size of the phone. I certainly don't feel like an idiot getting it out my pocket, it looks very cool.

- The auto brightness on the screen is not all that bad. I got annoyed at first, not being able to turn the phone on max brightness, but after a few minutes my eyes got used to it and i hardly notice it anymore. It must serve a good purpose because the battery lasts a long time. I think that an official patch is definately needed though, not giving people an option to turn off auto brightness is disastrous. Saying that, more than likely i would leave auto brightness turned on, it does save battery and it is implemented excellently imho.

- Battery life is amazing. I got through 12-14 hours of gaming, browsing, and general usage + a full night withought charge on standby and when i woke up it had 7% battery life left. You can not go through 2 days with this phone though, so still you will have to charge it every night, but you can guarantee a full, proper day usage out of it without too much worries about the battery dieing.

- Hardware is a bit meh. On one hand the phone runs super smooth. And FPSE plays PS1 games super smooth, no slowdown at all. The N64 as i mentioned has a few sound skips. So the hardware does exaclty what it was designed to do. This is where it stops though. There will be no PS2 emulation, no dreamcast emulation, no xbox1 emulation. Not until the next handset gets released. This is the limits of this phones power.


Overall i think this is the best phone made to date. I don't care it hasn't got 1080p recording, i don't care the camera is only 5 megapixel. This phone owns and is easily the best phone i have ever owned to date.

Roll on the Xperia Play 2. I am now a branded fan.






edit - Just thought i would say that my phone came with a 16gb Micro SD card, 2 screen protectors (1 of them already put on flawlessly, no air bubbles or dust underneath at all, 1 spare). I have heard people only getting 8gb cards and no screen protectors, but this did not happen with my order.

i mostly agree with you, this is the best phone i have had and i have owned a G1, motorola dext, motorola milestone and a HTC HD2, i would only recommend the HD2 out of these and even then, only after installing android (unless your into windows)

the thing is, i no some people dont value proper gaming as much as me or others so they think this device is not needed but im glad we dont all feel the same way

what im really hoping for this device is, for it to be popular enough so that other manufacturers (or even sony) make a similar device, hopefully with dual or even quad core in mind, add 1GB ram and dreamcast/PS2 emulation is a possibility

but for right now? the play is excellent considering its the first of its kind

agree with most of what you say. but yes hardware is a bit meh.

could have done with better implementation on shoulder buttons and i still think they coud've stuck in an L2/R2 somewhere :P

overall, the best android phone i ever had was hands down the galaxy S. ****ing beatiful, screen, performance (with custom rom and lagfix!), etc.

but as a gaming phone, this is THE best, despite it's lackluster hardware, it has hardware controls, which, IMO, makes up for all its shortcomings!

L2 and R2 buttons.....

Yeah, i guess they could be put next to each other so that it doesn't increase the thickness of the phone.

So it would look like this -

_______________________________
(L1....L2..............................R2....R1)
_______________________________


Still, FPSE allows you to put L2 and R2 at the bottom left and right of the screen. They are easy enough to get to with your thumbs, so it's no big deal tbh.

usually not a big deal, but when you have to use simultaneous button presses, i.e. press R2 and X together, can become tricky.

Sony * Rule * Got mine Today

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Hi peeps,

Got mine today, excellent phone love the Ginerbread.

a few issues so far but no problem.

Love this phone, looks so stylish and plays excellent.

TapperOUT!

Im in the same camp as you mate, same age and gaming experience and I agree 100%

I'm 29 and one of the biggest retro gaming fans in the retro gaming scene.

if any of you have ever heard about the pandora (600mhz ARM TI OMAP 3530) based device. If not, more information is here www.openpandora.org

but I have both devices and I pitted them up agianst each other and gave a lenghy review/comparison of each. It's a good read if you're into that sorta thing.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ay-vs-pandora/

[SPOILER]
TLDR; this is the best mobile gaming handheld in terms of power and available software you can currently buy that satisfies the console emulators hobbyists needs.

not the absolute best when it comes to hardware and features, but makes up for it in interface and available software and raw power.
[/SPOILER]

Originally Posted by johnsongrantr

I'm 29 and one of the biggest retro gaming fans in the retro gaming scene.

if any of you have ever heard about the pandora (600mhz ARM TI OMAP 3530) based device. If not, more information is here www.openpandora.org

but I have both devices and I pitted them up agianst each other and gave a lenghy review/comparison of each. It's a good read if you're into that sorta thing.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....ay-vs-pandora/

[SPOILER]
TLDR; this is the best mobile gaming handheld in terms of power and available software you can currently buy that satisfies the console emulators hobbyists needs.

not the absolute best when it comes to hardware and features, but makes up for it in interface and available software and raw power.
[/SPOILER]

i just wanted to say i read your review and it was pretty good, i was interested in pandora at first but because of how long it took to release i completely forgot about it, although looking at it now, i totally envy the keyboard except the D pad and triggers, having gaming controls AND a qwerty keyboard is just excellent, sony should consider this with the xperia play 2 or what ever manufacturer decides to make a PS certified phone, if extra bulk was needed i could certainly live with it

that said, the keyboard is the only thing i would take from pandora, in my opinion the play beats it in every other area except screen size but then thats balanced with capacitive vs resistive

EDIT - forgot to check the pandora website to see how much it costs.....wow, 440 euro is alot, i was expecting a little over half that, just for comparisons sake i bought my play , sim free for £400 a few days after release, considering the play has more useful features (in my opinion) 3G, android OS and its market, phone functions etc....im surprised it cost so much

I agree here !

I am 27 and also brought up with retro games it's so nice able to play my games again from my childhood.
The device lays good in your hand indeed the as for the brightness well it's fine although my xperia x10 with lowest brightness on is still readable and not with my xperia play but even cranked up at highest brightness the battery still remains exellent thought it would drain like hell like my x10 does but it doesn't !


Glad I got rid of my omnia with win mobile and now have 2 nice xperia devices !
Android is the OS I am currently hooked on never was to happy with my omnia due winmobile but the phone was hyped in my country and it was the biggest mistake I made.

Hardware wise yea there are already dualcore devices and tegra2 gpu powered
as for the emulators of xbox , ps2 , dreamcast & gamecube
I don't think we will see them in the next year or so
but then again there is a developer working to get a dreamcast emu working and progress is already nice I think it's a matter of time we will see

as for my order I recieved a stock screenprotector already on screen , extra screen protector ( they are very scratch resistant my x10 didn't have such a good screenprotector had to take the factory applied on off and apply a newly bought screen protector ) Wall charger , car charger , leather poach & 8gb SD card which I recently upgraded to 32gb