Messaging, App Store, Browser


Messaging

The basic version of Android 2.three Gingerbread available on the Xperia PLAY for Verizon does not offering much in the way of advanced messaging features. The SMS customer is good, and offers threaded messaging among other features, though information technology is a niggling sparse looking and does non take the flash of other clients. The PLAY has Android ii.3.2, which means the Google Talk client does not back up vocalisation and video calls with the forepart-facing camera. Out of the box, there are no apps for IM platforms like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, or Windows Live, and so you volition have to become to the Android Market and download an app if y'all desire to utilise those services.

The weakest point of messaging with the PLAY is the standard email customer that comes with Android two.3. While the stellar Gmail app is present, and nonetheless offers the best Gmail experience on any mobile platform, users who rely on other email services are stuck with a bare-bones, outdated client. It does not accept many features that one would expect on a modern electronic mail client today, such every bit folder management and pinch-to-zoom. Compared with the electronic mail clients offered on Samsung and HTC Android phones, the PLAY'south is far backside.


Apps / App Store

Like any Android phone with Google certification, the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY has access to the Android Market, with over 200,000 apps to download and install. The web interface of the Android Marketplace makes information technology simple and easy to browse and install apps right from a Mac or PC. Equally far as included applications, the Xperia PLAY bucks the trend of recent Verizon smartphones to include a ton of bloatware that is not very useful to the user.

There are but five Verizon-specific apps included (V CAST Apps, Backup Assistant, My Verizon Mobile, Visual Voicemail and VZ Navigator), and they all could arguably exist useful to many users. Verizon has also thrown in the Amazon Kindle app for e-books, a basic version of QuickOffice for management of documents, and Skype Mobile.

The star attraction of the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY is the Xperia PLAY app, which gives admission to the included games and a portal to download more games from the V CAST store. The app will launch automatically when the telephone is unlocked and the gamepad is slid out. From the Xperia PLAY app, you can bound right into the seven included games: Madden NFL '11, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Crash Bandicoot, and Tetris. You can also launch the games from the standard app tray, as well, if you are not already in the Xperia PLAY app.

While the games included with the PLAY were good and entertaining, hardcore gamers will likely exist looking for more in a brusk amount of time. There are fifty+ games available to download betwixt the Xperia PLAY and 5 CAST apps portals, though many of the games go out much to be desired, or are not sectional to the PLAY. Many of the games tin exist constitute in the Android Market on other phones, lessening the wow factor of the PLAY.

Information technology would have been smart for Sony Ericsson to have more sectional titles that would get the hardcore gamers to snap up the PLAY. If it could lock down titles similar Last Fantasy, gamers would flock to the PLAY in droves.


Browser

The browser available on the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY is the stock browser that ships with Android two.3 Gingerbread. Information technology features Adobe Flash Role player support and compression-to-zoom, as well every bit multiple window management. Performance was fast, and scrolling was polish and quick. Double-borer on text neatly zoomed in, with the text re-flowed for easier reading. There really isn't much to mutter about with Android's stock browser, but power users might want to expect to third-party browsers in the Android Market for more advanced features.