Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review

The PlayStation Phone finally lands - but can it live up to the hype?

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
The definitive Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review: Video

With a five-megapixel camera and a 1GHz processor, we'd have hoped Xperia Play would be shooting HD video. The highest quality setting, however, is 800 x 480 at 30fps. You can also shoot at medium and low quality settings, plus there's an option for YouTube-optimised video.

There's a video light if you need it, but it's found under a section called flash mode, which seems sloppy. You can also apply Mono, Sepia, Negative and Solarize colour effects and tweak white balance. Again, we could find no way of zooming.

Sony ericsson xperia play

The first clip shows how the Xperia Play handles transitions from dark places to light ones. Our transition was at a fairly gentle walking pace, but the phone seems to be constantly searching for the right exposure.

The detail in the second clip's panning shot is a little bit lacking, but there's no stuttering from the phone, which is good.

Our, ahem, moving subject in the third clip turned out fine but there's a definite lack of definition in the grassy areas.

Faster movers, such as the cars in the last clip, seem to really tax the phone, though, which is a shame.