Are you tired of playing the waiting game with original PlayStation titles becoming available with the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY? Well, if you still have actual original PlayStation disc titles of games laying around being unused at the moment, you might take some fancy in the idea that you can rip and play them on the Xperia PLAY.

Thankfully, one XDA member going by the name of yifanlu has been hard at work for over a week reverse engineering the handset’s PlayStation emulator – the one that actually allows games like Crash Bandicoot to work on it. Interestingly enough, yifanlu has somehow managed to work it out so that the Xperia PLAY is able to play converted custom ISOs.

Well, all the hard work seems well-deserved because yifanlu was able to get an ISO of Crash Bandicoot 3 running in its entirety on the beloved gaming conscious smartphone. In fact, it’s almost a near perfect port, which is exhibited by the video below. However, there are still some minor issues to iron out in the meantime – like its inability to play multi-disc titles.

Nevertheless, it’s a decent starting point for a portable console that’s trying desperately to bring old school PlayStation titles that we’ve fallen in love with in the past.

source: XDA & yifanlu via Phandroid

Good news to anyone in the UK looking  for a cute and cuddly Android powered smartphone with a physical keyboard because the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro is now finally for sale.

Obviously, affordability is something that this handset is oozing from every nook and cranny seeing that it can be picked up through either Carphone Warehouse or Mobiles.co.uk for the no payment required price of free on plans that start at $20 per month. Better yet, you can actually choose which carrier you want to have service with – and in this case, it’s Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodafone. For the price, it’s quite fitting seeing that its hardware specs aren’t all that mind-blowing, but it’s still one handset that you might find yourself getting along with very easily.
Sure it’s not going to beat out some of the titans in the industry right now, but nevertheless, we’re certain that it’ll win over people more with its killer combination of cuteness and awesome pricing.

via Unwired View

Phones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, which we previewed not long ago, are boasting a svelte homescreen launcher, which is reserved for the new Timescape interface, but the .apk file has now leaked for anyone with an Xperia phone to install. There is a new feature called “Themes” and other little changes like a button on the right of the app drawer that allows you to directly uninstall apps from there.

There is also a Widget overview mode, where the widgets you’ve placed on your various homescreens are floating around in a grouped view, allowing you to spread them all over the display by shaking the handset.

The leaked .apk with the new Home Launcher has been tested on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Xperia arc and Xperia Play already, and seems to work without any issues. Hit the source link if you want to try it out on your Sony Ericsson Xperia line handset.

source: Xperiablog

After watching the launch of the HTC EVO 3D and the LG Optimus 3D (soon to launch Stateside as the LG Thrill 4G), Sony Ericsson has decided to throw its hat into the glasses-free 3D ring with a handset of its own. The unnamed handset will feature a massive 4.7 inch display with a HD resolution of 720 x 1280. The joint venture is far from the only smartphone manufacturer entering the 3D arena. Samsung is said to be working on a Galaxy 3D model.

It’s way too early to determine if 3D smartphones are more than just a fad. The stereoscopic, glasses-free version used on handsets can lead to eye fatigue and headaches. And if you do not view the screen from the correct angle, the 3D effect will not be apparent to the viewer.

source: SEMCBlog via ElectricPig

If Music Unlimited was not enough to satisfy your cravings for entertainment on the go, Sony’s Qriocity video streaming service might just do the trick. Starting August 1, owners of the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro will be the first to give the service a try with a number of other Xperia smartphones, namely the Xperia arc, neo, PLAY, pro and acro, to receive the Qriocity app later this year.

Qriocity will land on your Xperia smartphone via a software update so you might want to keep an eye out for notifications. The service will let you buy or rent movies and TV shows from a list of movie studios, including NBC, Universal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros so the selection of titles will surely be a broad one indeed. However, only nine markets will have access to video content from Qriocity initiailly – the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Japan, Canada and the United States, so if you happen to live outside of these countries, you will probably have to cross your fingers and hope for the service to land in your homeland as well.

This is pretty much all that we know about the upcoming Qriocity mobile video streaming service so we cannot say how much rentals and purchases will cost exactly. Besides that, it isn’t exactly clear whether saving content for offline viewing will be allowed. The answers to these questions will be known in a few days – enough time to stock on microwave popcorn.

source: Sony Ericsson Product Blog

Buried in the Sony Ericsson’s website an upcoming MT11i handset was unearthed, which seems to be another Android 2.3 Gingerbread handset that the company will be outing, besides the Xperia Ray and Xperia Active.

There aren’t many  other details in these types of files, except that the screen resolution will be 480×854, and the ScreenSizeChar is 44×32, which hopefully will be slapped on a larger display. The phone should be capacitive touchscreen-only, since the ones with a physical keyboard SE marks with a “K” in the internal codename. Moreover, under the keyboard section in the file below we have “phone keypad” listed.

Also, considering that MT15i is the Xperia Neo, MT11i might fill in the gap between the smaller 3″ screens on the Xperia active and Xperia mini and the 3.7″ one on the Neo, or even the 4.2″ on the Xperia arc, which is LT15i. The “M” in the codenames obviously stands for middle, while “L” might mean large, and “S” small, judging from the screen sizes of the actual handsets behind the SE codenames.

A relative disappointment is the ARM Cortex-A8 processor listed, which means we will have yet another single core 1GHz phone from SE, but we know the big guns are reserved for the Sony Ericsson Xperia duo, so no complaints.

Some specs actually coincide with the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, which we previewed not long ago, and found out to be a very promising little Android handset. The Xperia ray, which, however, goes under the ST18i codename, so the MT11i is one more thing to look forward to from Sony Ericsson in the third quarter of this year.

source: SonyEricsson via IT168 (translated)

Sony Ericsson has recently posted on its Facebook page that the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update for the Xperia X10 might be coming even earlier than the previously announced August timeframe. The post states:

“The launch of the 2.3 software for X10 is getting closer, and the planned release date is approx. w30. The date could still be changed, since the launch is depending on operators approval. The software will be rolled out continuously, just like the earlier 2.1 release. The exact launch date is depending on market and operators approval, so it will unfortunately not be possible to give precise information on launch dates for each market/operator. You will get more information once the roll out has started.”

Week 30 of the year is actually this week, so some places might see the update rolling to their Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 handsets that are not bound by some carrier’s shackles. Some of the camera UI functions were initially being dumped with the update, but Sony Ericsson’s developers have put extra efforts to remedy this, and also embed the UI mostly as we see it on the Xperia arc, for example:

“The UI with the desktop layout and pinch-to-overview gesture will be similar and Gingerbread features like Wi-Fi & USB tethering, App storage on SD-card etc are included. Also the customizable horizontal app tray and the media experience widgets from the 2011 XperiaTM Products are in, including an integrated equalizer in the music player. Of course also apps that require Android versions 2.2 or 2.3 will now be possible to download from Android Market, e.g. Adobe flash.

One difference compared to the 2011 products is that DLNA will not be included. Extra type approvals were needed for that and we were unable to prioritize that without jeopardizing the time schedule. There are both server and client alternatives downloadable from Android market though.”

The Facebook Inside Xperia integration will also grace the screens of those generic Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 trade kits that get the update first, and the company has even recorded a video preview of what the update will look like on the phone, which you can see below.

source: SonyEricsson & AndroidCentral

Okay, it may be only a press shot and not a photo of the real deal in action, but this is clearly the best image of the Sony Ericsson Xperia duo that we have to date. The smartphone looks pretty much identical to the unit seen in the last Xperia duo photos that we came across with the location of the sensors and the front-facing camera being the only visual difference.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia duo is expected to become the company’s flagship device when it launches, and judging by its rumored tech specs, the smartphone is going to be quite a beast. First of all, it is said that this will be the first Sony Ericsson handset to have a dual-core chipset under its hood with the ST-Ericsson NovaThor A9500, U8500 chips and the Quallcomm MSM8260 silicon being the most probable candidates. What is also rumored about the Sony Ericsson Xperia duo is that its chipset will tick at 1.4GHz and will be backed up by a whopping 1.5 gigabytes of RAM.

A 4.5-inch qHD display is very likely to shine on the smartphone’s front side flavored with the Mobile BRAVIA Engine for better looking colors and enhanced contrast. Besides that, the Xperia duo is said to be getting a 12-megapixel camera with a second generation Exmor R CMOS sensor for taking great photos in low light conditions. Top everything off with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and a beefy 2500 mAh battery, and you get a smartphone that might very well land straight on top of the Android food chain.

It is said that the Sony Ericsson Xperia duo will launch as early as September of this year, but we suggest that you take this with a grain of salt for now.

Thanks, Philip!

source: IT168, digi.tech.qq.com (translated)

While Verizon customers got a head start in the States when it came to picking up the PlayStation certified Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, a GSM variant of the phone is coming to AT&T. With HSPA+ connectivity, the device will be known on AT&T as the Xperia PLAY 4G and will be available at the end of the year, hopefully in time to catch the holiday shopping season.

The handset will be pre-loaded with games, some of which, like Dungeon Defenders Second Wave, are exclusive to the AT&T version of the Xperia PLAY. 150 titles will be available for the phone by the end of 2011. The Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY is equipped with a 4 inch screen with resolution of 480 x 854. Android 2.3 is on board. A single-core 1GHz  processor is running the show with 512MB of RAM and ROM installed. We must not forget the Adreno GPU graphics processor under the hood. A 5MP camera with LED flash is on back and captures video at 720p. The side sliding, landscape oriented game controller makes playing games on the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY as easy as if you were playing on a PlayStation.

With Big Red’s version of the phone going for $199.99 with a 2-year contract, we would expect AT&T’s price to be in that ballpark.

source: AndroidCentral

According to a few unconfirmed reports, the QWERTY-equipped Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro may have been delayed until Q4 due to the tsunami that struck Japan just a few months ago.

It was originally believed the Android-powered smartphone would hit the shelves in Q2. This wouldn’t be the first of Sony’s products to see delays and supply shortages due to the tsunami tragedy.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro features a 3.7-inch capacitive display, is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and has a fairly large four-row, slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

There are also some rumors floating around that this device was delayed due to an impending update of the Android software to version 2.3.4. However, other sources are quick to refute that rumor and point back to the tsunami.

Fortunately for those who like what Sony Ericsson does with their smartphones, Q4 is only a few months away if it really has been pushed back that far. The question is, can you be patient until then? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

source: Android Community via Slash Gear