Quick Advice needed

[dslayton]

I like the Charge. But I have to admit that I am tempted by the Xperia Play. I know the specs of each phone. The Charge far out guns the XP, however as fast as 4gLTE is on VZW, I am not a fan of being tied to a charger. I use my phone a lot, but I find myself having to charge every four hours.

The advantage of the XP having the slide out gamepad, is a huge plus. I've always loved mobile gaming, but the lack of physical buttons has been a huge turn off. I guess that I am just asking your guys thoughts on the XP being a fair trade off to the Charge. Thankz.

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[Cruiserdude]

Honestly they are very different devices. I don't honestly see the Xperia Play as being that popular of a gaming device compared to other offerings. It has pretty much the same hardware as the T-Bolt and Revolution, which are decently powerful but not spec-monsters by any means. However, the XP is likely to be a rather niche device, and other than the gamepad, doesn't really offer much in the way of exclusive features. Given SE's record with Android devices in the past, I wouldn't expect this phone to get a lot of support for very long, though it does supposedly come with Gingerbread. Regardless, I wouldn't expect to see alot of development, and as Android games get more complex, this device won't be able to handle them. However, it does have a physical gamepad and a PSP-like feel, which may be great for you if you're someone who likes playing a lot of mobile games.

The Charge is of course 4G, and has a beautiful screen. Many early reviews said the XP had one of the worst screens they had seen, so I hope that isn't important to you. The Hummingbird should easily be able to keep up with, and generally beat the Snapdragon 8x55/A205 when it comes to games, so honestly I don't see much of any hardware advantage when it comes to the XP, other than the gamepad. So if you don't have 4G in your area, and are a dedicated gamer who wants physical controls even if it means your phone looks like a PSP all the time, then go for it. It does look nice for that. But its specs are nothing special these days, and I expect you'd grow tired of it well before 2 years is up.

Honestly, if you don't care about 4G and are thinking of getting a 3g VZW phone that's great for games, I'd say your only real choice at this point would be the Droid X2, considering its Tegra2, which has alot of games specifically optimized for it, and will likely continue to be well-supported for some time. If you wait another month or so, we should see the Droid 3 soon, which will have a dual core SoC (OMAP 4430) a slide-out keypad that you could likely remap for gaming, but also use for email and texting and the like.

Its your call, but I personally couldn't imagine trading a Charge for an Xperia Play.