Xperia Play makes itself more enticing for the holidays with four free EA games

@Jameseh
It's only $50 on Verizon. How much is it on other carriers?

@You Mad It's $50 on Verizon -on contract-.

@stamps79 it's free? I still paid $50 3 weeks ago

@blessrok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN2U9sFYJCc
you should try it at least since it's free.

I like it, In my opinion it's the best in between the 4 free games offered.

@Afrit I ended up downloading it and trying it out. It seems cool, but I'm not really digging the controls. Might just take some getting use to, but I think even the PSP analog nub is better than these 2 touch analogs.

@blessrok
you're right PSP analog nub is better than these 2 touch analogs. but you can get use to it.

I wish they take note for the xperia play 2. The tech for physical slim joystick is possible, at just 1.6mm tall slim enough for a device to maintain a svelte profile

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/07/knowles-electronics-mems-joystick-for-samsung-galaxy-tab-ninten/

@arucious you plan on leaving your carrier?

@arucious You can find it for only $275 right now, which isn't terrible as far as unlocked phones go.

@Prboi

Scratch that,+ bucks with two year contract & online discount.

@Exu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN2U9sFYJCc
It's not like the one on console.
But pretty good, for a device you can put on your pocket.

@iTz FiNaL
All the old review and initial reviews of the device doesn't apply anymore
- The "Dim screen" is caused by the aggressive auto brightness sensor (Probably was done to squeeze more battery life) and no option to turn it off.
Now 2.3.4 update has auto brightness control and you can turn it off,

-The low 512 MB ram is really limiting in app multitasking, but because it is the only phone out there that uses a dual channel DDR2 memory working at 300 Hertz, it make it really fast and better performer on games frame rate.

-The camera was pretty subpar at launch but it got an HD update
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/22/xperia-play-finally-gets-hd-video-capture-catches-up-with-smart/

-The battery life is pretty much like any android device, if you know how to manage it right. Playing graphical intensive game can last you 5 hours which is good compared to iPhone4 when playing Infinity Blade you will get similar results.

I own the new AT&T Xperia Play, and I can vouch for how shitty this device is. Here are some things to consider if you are like me and are sick of touch-controls.
First the good:
* It has a honest-to-goodness controller! The D-pad and the face buttons feel good. The shoulder buttons are a bit wobbly, but worked well enough. The analogue "pads" were nonsense unfortunately, using them wasn’t much more precise than touch-controls, but with one definite benefit of not actually having your fingers obscuring the screen.
* It can run flash! Quite well too - many of the games will be instantly compatible with the controller. Unfortunately - most Android flash players out there don't support the key mapping for more than one action button, so if your flash game of choice uses more than one button - you will still have to use touch-controls.
And that's about that for pros. A long-ass list of cons follows:
* It's ugly and bulky, and kind of cheap-feeling. This is probably the most superficial negative on this list, it has to be said. Xperia feels neither slick, nor “expensive”. In fact the slide hinge feels a bit wobbly, and the rounded, soapbox shape and faded blue plastic put it more in a cheap-toy territory than an expensive consumer electronic device.
* Xperia Play is NOT a Playstation phone - it's just a low-end Android phone with a controller. The "official" Playstation games are emulated, and at times - quite poorly.
* Unlike iOS Store, Android marketplace is a wasteland for games. Aside from a few best-sellers that were hastely ported over to Android, majority of games in the marketplace are of surprisingly lousy quality, and are often unreasonably expensive. So, the major use for your newfound controller will be for emulators.
* The device only comes with 400 Meg of internal storage, and out of the box it is 3/4 filled with non-removable bloatware - apps and games you will never play or use, but even if you do - they are much better off being on your SD Card, and NOT hogging up the super-limited internal ROM. This basically limits the number of apps you can install to less than a dozen before you have to start managing them. This problem will haunt you constantly, and apps lacking the "Move to SD" quickly become your worst enemies. After a few weeks of use I have maxed out my internal storage to the point I had to start removing the less-used apps that utilized over a meg of internal memory, all that with full knowledge that there is a dozen useless bloatware programs there, eating up about 10-25 meg each that I can't touch. Also - this constant memory shuffling eventually leads to instability - your phone begins to crash on occasion. The only way to un-crash it is removing the battery, speaking of which…
* The battery life is pretty bad. Even with most features turned off, your phone will barely last the day without being charged. Moreover – unlike iPhone, which charges in under an hour, Xperia might take up to 6 hours to fully charge, so you better not forget to plug it in overnight.
* The AT&T Xperia Play has a hardcore-protected bootloader, impervious to all existing rooting procedures, so you wouldn't be able to access all of your device's features (or remove the aforementioned pre-loaded software).
* The 512 Mb RAM becomes a huge problem in conjunction with all that bloatware constantly launching, and eating up RAM. Multitasking is impossible even for smaller apps, because on average you will never have more than 50-60 Meg of ram free.
* Not all games and emulators support the controller buttons, or have an option of disabling the on-screen controls, making the awesome controller somewhat less useful.
* It's android at its worst. It basically performs like a low-end android device. If you are going to Xperia after iPhone - you will really start missing your old phone very soon. In my case - I went back to iPhone 4 and was much happier for it, even if having real buttons and not having to deal with iTunes was very cool. I will keep the Xperia around until they find a way to hack the bootloader - and then it will probably become a much better device.

@Darkfalzx
Too bad you're on AT&T :(
with Verizon you never have to deal with the bloatwares as it come with stock android, and rooting become possible now.

@Kayonesoft
went to best buy last week and they had it on sale for $1.00 with a new/extension contract

@NukaCola
Try using your default android browser to access this:
http://vip.accumulate.se/gstore/eaoem/game.page?s=31&tid=2502

@AslanTheKing
i got them on my VZW Play.

@AslanTheKing
Try using your default android browser to access those:

NFS Shift HD: http://vip.accumulate.se/gstore/eaoem/game.page?s=31&tid=2504
• Dead Space: http://vip.accumulate.se/gstore/eaoem/game.page?s=31&tid=2503
• Battlefield BC2: http://vip.accumulate.se/gstore/eaoem/game.page?s=31&tid=2502

@(Unverified)
use this link from you phone browser
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1283513&page=3

@Afrit, @(Unverified)
Awesome! Thanks guys for the links.