Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (PlayStation Phone) given an in-depth preview

The folks at Engadget managed to score themselves a working prototype of Sony Ericsson’s “holy grail” of the past few months. The Xperia Play or better known as the PlayStation Phone made its way into their eager hands where they did an in-depth preview and rundown of the device, with pictures and videos for the whole world to see. From hands-on report, it looks like the Xperia Play is nothing to shout about. Besides the slide out gamepad (that works very well with games), it’s just a run-of-the-mill high-end Android phone.

The Xperia Play packs a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor with an Adreno 205 GPU, 512 MB of RAM, a 4″ multitouch 854 x 480 LCD display (like the X10), and a rumored Bravia engine for improved video playback. The D-pad works perfectly with Android, so if you’re used to having a trackpad or trackball on your Android device, you can use the directional keys to accomplish the same things. It’ll come with Gingerbread (Android 2.3 – yay!) and Mediascape is no longer an app, but a bunch of widgets. It looks like this phone is going to be targeted at consumers who want an Android phone for gaming.

With Sony Ericsson yet to explain how their games store will work, what games will be on it and how much they will be priced, the device still looks like it’s sitting on the fence between being a passable phone and an awesome one. Sony Ericsson could hit or miss with this device, but we’ll have to wait for more details when they finally unveil it to the world at the Mobile World Congress next month. Head over to engadget to read the full write up.