Recently we tested out the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and were pretty stunned by the impressive download speeds we received via Three UK’s 3G network, now we can confirm that this smartphone / handheld console hybrid is headed to AT&T.
This news was announced at a recent press event in New York City and Engadget recently got some hands on time with the AT&T branded handset, as you can probably guess there is no major difference between this and any other Xperia Play, however AT&T are keen to state that it will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will connect their HSPA+ network.
Currently we do not know how much AT&T will want you to pay for the Xperia Play or when it will arrive, all we do know is that you should be able to connect to AT&T’s network at up to 21MBps, this will be great when you are downloading Xperia Play games as they can be quite large downloads, however as you know download speeds in certain areas can be much lower than this.
You can see a gallery of photos of the AT&T branded Xperia Play here, if you do not know about this gaming centric smartphone you can see our fully detailed review here and see full tech specs here, there are a few imperfections, but considering it is the first-ever smartphone to feature a dedicated slide-out gamepad it is not bad.
Prior to this announcement the only Android 2.3 handset to hit AT&T was the HTC Status, this handset differs massively to the Xperia Play and is a great messaging device thanks to its candybar design and phsyical QWERTY keyboard, you can find out all about this smartphone here, in cased you didn’t know the HTC Status is exactly the same as the HTC ChaCha.
We can also confirm that AT&T will offer the Xperia Play in blue as well as in black, this is the first time we have ever seen this device offered in a color other than black, however we do not yet have any photos of this particular color option, we can’t help but think that it would also look great in white, how about you?
When we hear more regarding a release date and price we will keep you posted, we imagine that it will retail for around $199.99 as part of a two-year deal, will you buy the Xperia Play when it hits AT&T?
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