Playstation Phone revealed.

brain_stew

Regular
Since this is almost definitely a separate device to the the PSP2 I feel it needs its own thread.

Engadget have just got their hands on the Playstation phone prototype from Sony Ericsson and its an Android smartphone (said to run 3.0) with integrated gaming controls. The internals are just a standard off-the-shelf Qualcomm MSM8655 (which means an underwhelming Adreno 205 GPU) @ 1ghz with 512MB RAM.

Taken from Engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/26/the-playstation-phone/

Engadget said:
It's hard to believe that what we're looking at is real -- but we assure you, the picture above is in fact the PlayStation Phone you've long been waiting for. As we reported back in August, the device you see is headed into the market soon, likely boasting Android 3.0 (aka Gingerbread), along with a custom Sony Marketplace which will allow you to purchase and download games designed for the new platform. The device snapped up top (and in our gallery below) is sporting a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 (a chip similar to the one found in the G2, but 200MHz faster), 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and the screen is in the range of 3.7 to 4.1 inches. Looking almost identical to the mockup we hit you with this summer, the handset does indeed have a long touchpad in the center which is apparently multitouch, and you can see in the photos that it's still bearing those familiar PlayStation shoulder buttons. For Sony buffs, you'll be interested to know that there's no Memory Stick slot here, but there is support for microSD cards.

The particular model in these shots is still in prototyping mode. As such, the unit doesn't have a custom skin (not even SE's Timescape design seen on the Xperia devices), and is said to be rather buggy. We're digging into more facts as we speak, but it's likely that much of what we reported earlier is still accurate, and though the device could still be headed for a 2010 release, 2011 is looking much more realistic. Still, there's a lot of time between now and the holidays... so keep your fingers crossed!


engadgetpspphone7.jpg


Nothing particularly exciting really, hopefully this is seen as nothing more than a side project, so that it doesn't detract from the real PSP2 too much.
 
That touchpad thing in the middle looks a little like it's made to function as a dual analog controller - would be interesting to know what those dots do in that respect - I presume at the very least give you touch feedback on where the center of the analog stick is.
 
What a dubious roadmap choice; MSM8x60 and OMAP4 would have been much more appropriate in the same timeframe (then again maybe this just got delayed a million times). Oh well, it's just a marketing gimmick anyway, but SE does continue in their long tradition of pseudo-random decision making.
 
What an awful awful roadmap choice; this might actually have been interesting if if had been the 8x60 with an Adreno 220, but of course even that would be slightly weaker than the OMAP4. Oh well, it's just a marketing gimmick snyway, but SE does continue in their long tradition of pseudo-random decision making.

The engadget article I believe mentions something about an earlier version almost a year ago was denied by Sony because the quality wasn't up to Playstation standards? There's no Playstation branding on this now either, by the way.
 
Does anyone know at all how the Adreno 205 differs technically from the Adreno 200? I've heard claims that it's a lot faster, in a way that's analogous to moving from SGX 530 to SGX 540. So maybe it went to 2 TMUs and possibly 2 SIMD ALUs.
 
Does anyone know at all how the Adreno 205 differs technically from the Adreno 200? I've heard claims that it's a lot faster, in a way that's analogous to moving from SGX 530 to SGX 540. So maybe it went to 2 TMUs and possibly 2 SIMD ALUs.

I believe it's 4 ALU's vs 1 and an improved shader. On top of being clocked significantly faster.
 
Does anyone know at all how the Adreno 205 differs technically from the Adreno 200? I've heard claims that it's a lot faster, in a way that's analogous to moving from SGX 530 to SGX 540. So maybe it went to 2 TMUs and possibly 2 SIMD ALUs.

It is a huge leap forward and the chip scores roughly double in benchmarks, finally bringing it on par with the SGX535, its no SGX 540 though. Maybe Qualcomm will finally deliver some better drivers and the chip really will end up competing with the SGX 540 one day but I remain sceptical, Qualcomm have used this same base architecture for a very long time now and haven't made any significant progress. For now, its an SGX 535 level part for all intents and purposes, Anand's benches are here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3967/the-tmobile-g2-preview/4


Big question is will ih have PSP hardware [cpu/gpu] inside?

I'd say the chances are slim to zero. It just uses standard off-the-shelf parts, they've not reworked the SOC to include any extra hardware.
 
Since this is almost definitely a separate device to the the PSP2 I feel it needs its own thread.

Engadget have just got their hands on the Playstation phone prototype from Sony Ericsson and its an Android smartphone (said to run 3.0) with integrated gaming controls. The internals are just a standard off-the-shelf Qualcomm MSM8655 (which means an underwhelming Adreno 205 GPU) @ 1ghz with 512MB RAM.

Taken from Engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/26/the-playstation-phone/




engadgetpspphone7.jpg


Nothing particularly exciting really, hopefully this is seen as nothing more than a side project, so that it doesn't detract from the real PSP2 too much.

Uhmm, wouldn't this have an Adreno 220 GPU and thus it's hard to say how it'll stack up yet.
 
brain_stew said:
It is a huge leap forward and the chip scores roughly double in benchmarks, finally bringing it on par with the SGX535, its no SGX 540 though. Maybe Qualcomm will finally deliver some better drivers and the chip really will end up competing with the SGX 540 one day but I remain sceptical, Qualcomm have used this same base architecture for a very long time now and haven't made any significant progress. For now, its an SGX 535 level part for all intents and purposes, Anand's benches are here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3967/t...e-g2-preview/4

Thanks for the link. On paper AMD z430/Adreno 200 doesn't seem too bad, having some pros and cons vs SGX 530. It'd really be a shame if the architecture is held back a lot by drivers.

Uhmm, wouldn't this have an Adreno 220 GPU and thus it's hard to say how it'll stack up yet.

MSM8655 is Adreno 205:

http://developer.qualcomm.com/dev/development-devices/mdp8655
 
Thanks for the link. On paper AMD z430/Adreno 200 doesn't seem too bad, having some pros and cons vs SGX 530. It'd really be a shame if the architecture is held back a lot by drivers.

Well on the bright side, Sony releasing a gaming focused Android device using an Adreno GPU might just be the motivation needed for Qualcomm to deliver decent drivers. If they can get this thing to compete in the same ballpark as the SGX 540 (and theoretically they should be able to) then this could be quite a nice little device. I don't believe SGX535 levels of performance are really satisfactory for a gaming focused smartphone released in 2011.
 
Sounds to me like Sony is taking a first dip in deep water with that one. If specs are true I wouldn't be surprised at all if its successor could end up quite a bit more capable irrelevant if it's still a Qualcolmm SoC. Now a few more things actually make more sense....
 
Seeing as they are using a custom market place they will probably have some kind of hardware DRM, it will be interesting to see how that plays out ... Android really needs it, but I wouldn't want to see the hardware crippled when running non DRM apps.
 
Unless Sony is planning for a lot of fragmentation, they'll be working on a single platform to span multiple form factor mobile devices like a phone, PMP, tablet, etc.
 
Unless Sony is planning for a lot of fragmentation, they'll be working on a single platform to span multiple form factor mobile devices like a phone, PMP, tablet, etc.
I see that working only one-way. PSP2 will be the new console, capable of running anything (native games, PSP-Minis and "Phonestuff" ). PS-Phone will be a rather normal Android with Playstation branding and limited to the last-gen and cheaper stuff.

A own Sony-restricted appstore would be nonsense, and I dont think crippling the PSP2 to make its games compatible to other (likely significantly weaker) platforms would serve anybody. consoles are rather closed for several good reasons.
 
Back
Top