Handsets

Verizon’s Xperia Play to Run Stock Android, Launch With 6 Titles

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We mosied down to Verizon’s shindig last night and were surprised to see that their version of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play was on hand. Nothing was different hardware-wise except for the CDMA radios inside and Verizon’s branding, but there was a lot more to see in the software side.

I noticed all of the units running stock Android – I found this very odd considering even prototype models of the device had Sony Ericsson’s custom user interface sitting on top of it. I asked a representative from Big Red what was up with that and he was able to confirm to me that they’ll be offering a mostly-stock Gingerbread experience. It makes the device a lot smoother overall than the versions with Sony Ericsson’s UI.

Sony Ericsson will still have a few custom bits here and there such as their camera, Playstation suite and a few other applications, but the launcher and styling should all be just as stock as it can get. The device also had a few new games. I checked out Madden NFL 11 and Crash Bandicoot. No video, unfortunately, but I can tell you that a month makes a huge difference.

They’ve been optimizing the crap out of the device and the games play buttery smooth. I couldn’t tell with the newer titles as I hadn’t played them before, but I revisited my friend Bruce Lee and noticed a considerable upgrade in framerate since we last saw it in Barcelona. The device will come pre-installed with 6 games but they weren’t able to confirm which of these would be trials or full versions.

Verizon still hasn’t committed to a date or pricing but their general outlook is Spring so hang in there – we think this one will be worth the wait.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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10 Comments

  1. Yay! I am excited

  2. Will wonders never cease. I thought Sony was to arrogant to come off their high horse and use stock Android. I can now put this phone on my list of possibilities.

  3. stock would be a miracle

  4. Stock Gingerbread with a slide out game pad? If this is 4G capable it will be my next phone.

  5. I hope this is a sign of things to come. Maybe other manufacturers/carriers will finally come to realize they get very little value with a custom UI for what amounts to a ton of headaches (dev time, slower end user experience, difficulty providing OS updates down the line).

  6. It’s “mostly-stock”….. mostly.

  7. Holy fuck; Jumpin Jesus; Somebody fuck me in the ass to wake me up! Did I just read this correctly? Did SONY get the fucking hint that has really not been a hint as much as a crystal clear message tattoo’d on 99% of Android users’ fucking forheads??? STOCK ANDROID!!! There have obviously been other devices with stock Android before now, but the fact that this device was originally supposed to have a custom UI and was reverted to stock means that maybe these manufacturers and carriers are starting to realize that we DON’T WANT YOUR STUPID FUCKING CUSTOM INTERFACE!!!

  8. if this is true then somebody knows their target audience

  9. Lol yeah awhile ago I said I think this is going to be a cool phone regardless how other people doubted it. Looks like I was right, still I wouldn’t get it cause…I’m not that into video games anymore

  10. I don’t think it’s surprising that this phone is going to have a stock version. The whole idea of a gamepad instead of a keyboard was to cater to that demographic of the android community that was saying how nice a gamepad would be.

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