XPeria Pro, Neo And the PlayStation Phone Announced

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If you’re wondering why Sony’s advertising those year old XPeria 10 in India, Here’s why.
As usual whenever a new product is announced in the US, older products are dumped to India(3rd world countries).  This time it’s Sony which announced the latest in the XPeria series – XPeria Play, XPeria Pro and XPeria Neo at the Mobile World Congress 2011.

I hate the fact that that, despite having an open operating system like Android  the hardware companies have gone back to slimy way of categorizing each of their phones as “gaming only”, business ready and entertainment/music phones. Didn’t they learn enough already that one phone – which “does-it-all” can take over the a major chunk of the market? (in case you’ve not figured it out, I am talking about the Apple iPhone here).

XPeria Play is also well known to every one as the Play Station phone and the first Android phone to come with a dedicated gaming keypad. It features

• 4″ inch screen FWVGA screen resolution
• 1Ghz Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor
• Dedicated Adreno GPU for those amazing games at 60fps
• Gaming buttons – you’ll not miss your gaming controller now.
• Will run Android 3.0.
• 5.1 Megapixel camera.
• Can run/download PlayStation games through the PlayStation suite (being developed right now)
• Don’t keep your hopes high, the phone will only be available by March 2011.

XPeria Pro (advertised as a business phone)

• Slideout QWERTY keyboard
• 3.7″ screen size
• Runs on Android 3.0 Gingerbread Operating system.
• The Usual 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• Built in 8GB MicroSD card.
• HDMI Output
• 854  x 480pixels (FWVGA) screen resolution
• EXmor 8.1 megapixel camera
• Available in colors – Blue Gradient, Red & Silver.
• Will be available by the end of Q2 2011.

XPeria Neo (an entertainment phone, coz it doesn’t have a physical keyboard)

This phone is a stripped down version of the XPeria Pro, the features are very similar except the following.

• No Smart keyboard – Predicts what you’re typing. This isn’t the first and won’t be the last to do so.
• Document Viewer only, no editor – So editing documents isn’t your piece of cake.
• No physical keyboard – That’s for people who like blind landscape typing, the rest of the world still loves soft keyboards.
• Weighs less than XPeria Pro – As it doesn’t have a physical keyboard.
• Available in colors – Black, Silver & Red.
• Will be available by the end of Q1, 2011.

The detailed comparison between Xperia Neo and XPeria Pro is below

[Via SonyEricsson Press, BGR & PCMag]

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2 Responses to this post

1. chandu says:

   February 15, 2011 at 9:40 AM

   I have few points Swaroop,
   1) about “does-it-all”, I still think there is a need for limited customization like slider keyboard and gaming specialized and price variant (NEO) and premium(ARC). I think SE is hitting all the spots here. wouldn’t it be awesome playing NES or PSOne classics on this XPlay! even apple is coming with a firm factor variant of iphone(rumored though)
   2) except for Pro version .. rest of the phones will be available from march.

   Reply
   • Swaroop says:

     February 15, 2011 at 10:03 AM

     Chandu,

     I agree that specialized phones sometimes appear cool. But who knew Apple iPhone becoming a great gaming device without having tons of buttons.

     Yes the SE Play, Neo will be out by the end of Q1 2011 as you said. Correcting it.. Thanks

     Reply