Rumor: PlayStation Phone launch in February, in stores by April

[Emil]

The rumored PlayStation Phone, also known as the Zeus Z1, will hit stores in April after officially launching at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona two months from now. More specifically, it will be announced at Sony Ericsson's press conference on the Sunday evening. "Sony Ericsson is going big on this one," an anonymous source told Pocket-lint, "but although it will get a Feb launch, it won't be in shops until April."

This would imply that we won't be able to see the Zeus Z1 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month. It also means those itching to play the latest games on the device in the first quarter of 2011 will have to wait a little while longer.

To make things a little more interesting, according to OHIM's community trade mark database (via Engadget), Sony Ericsson has registered a few EU trademarks recently, including Xperia Play, Xperia Arc, Xperia Duo, and Xperia Neo. Sony Ericsson's PR firm Jung Relations has registered a variety of Xperia Play domain names, including XperiaPlay.com, XperiaPlay.net, and XperiaPlay.org. Xperia Play definitely seems like the most appropriate name for the leaked PlayStation Phone, but of course that doesn't mean that's the final name.

Almost three months ago, the first details of the PlayStation Phone leaked out, claiming it would come with a custom Sony Marketplace for purchasing and downloading games designed for the new platform. The device sports a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and a screen ranging from 3.7 to 4.1 inches. The handset also includes a long touchpad in the center which is apparently multitouch, as well as familiar PlayStation shoulder buttons. There's no Sony Memory Stick slot, but there is support for microSD cards.

Earlier this month, we saw the PlayStation Phone running Android 2.3 (codenamed Gingerbread) but it would be nice if Sony Ericsson put Android 3.0 (codenamed Honeycomb) on it before release. Still, maybe it will work on improving the current software in order to get better performance out of it.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41675-rumor-playstation-phone-launch-in-february-in-stores-by-april.html

 

[Benny26]

It's quite an unusual phone this. I won't be buying one but i bet alot of people will, just to try it out.

 

[Micro Watt]

Hi!
Just helping out with errors

You opened brackets but didn't close them:

... trade mark database (via Engadget, Sony Ericsson has registered...

 

[princeton]

****, for a gaming device those specs are PATHETIC! Mobile phones are already getting Tegra 2. There is NO REASON a high end gaming phone shouldn't have t.

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

I don't think Sony understands...

WE NEED PARTY CHAT, NOT A NEW CELL PHONE!!!

 

[Guest]

Benny26, I'm probably going to be one of those people you mentioned... If I have any money.

 

[Benny26]

Benny26, I'm probably going to be one of those people you mentioned... If I have any money.

Yeah, i'de definately have a play around with one, if say my friend bought one...But for me buying one, moneys too tight at the moment to go buying stuff like this, that's obviously not going to be a killer phones phone.

 

[Guest]

MicroSD rather than MemoryStick is a bad idea. MemoryStick is a key way various Sony devices can share information. What if a user wants to take his info from his PSP to his PSP Phone? Or load photos from his Cyber-shot? etc

 

[Guest]

The decision to use micro SD is for a simple reason, the SD standard has won the memory card format war. Most devices that use memory cards are using now SD and the micro SD size, the mini SD has been mostly ignored.

So that may make it incompatible with other Sony devices but it will make it compatible with everything else in the industry and I think that Sony knows that now.

The reason for the problem is simple, companies in an attempt to lock people into proprietary technologies in order to have a bigger share of the market pie create things that are non standard that causes precisely this kind of problem for consumers.

There are many memory card "standards" <--- See by the way how oxymoronic that statement is? Read it again: many standards, if they are many how could that be called a standard? That exactly is the problem.

Yes it is but at the end the SD format has become the most widely used memory card standard in the world and the consumer is demanding that compatibility and convenience.

The truth of the matter is that SD standard memory cards cost far less on average than Sony memory sticks because of their widespread use and consumers are starting to complain about that and the other issues and demanding a real standard.

Why have several different memory cards when you can buy a few SD and/or micro SD cards and use them in several different devices just like USB memory sticks that can be used in many different devices and computers?

And notice that micro SD cards can also be used in SD devices with the use of a cheap adapter.

If Sony is changing the memory cards to SD format is because they may be accepting the fact that the SD format is the logical choice now despite their previous attempts to push their proprietary "standard" into people.

Same thing has happened with many other proprietary "standards" before, a lot of times they end up disappearing like the Dinosaurs. When will companies learn and desists from this stupid and selfish practice that just annoys and alienates customers at the long run?