Pictures of Sony Ericson’s widely rumoured ‘PlayStation phone’ have been released, confirming speculation that the electronics giant is set to take on Apple in the smartphone market.
Speculation that a Sony PSP (Play Station Portable) mobile smartphone was in development have been circulation since early September.
Now the rumours have been confirmed, with a source leaking a prototype of the device to technology news site Engadget.
The device features a slide out gamepad (along with PlayStation’s familiar shoulder buttons) and will run on Android’s latest 3.0 Gingerbread software under a standardised PlayStation Skin so to keep the handset in-line with the console’s brand design.
According to Engadget, the Sony PlayStation Phone will be powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor of the MSM8655, similar to the chipset Apple is rumored to be using in its upcoming iPhone 5.
Courtesy of this chipset’s dual-mode support, there’s a chance of seeing the Sony PlayStation Phone being picked up by CDMA carriers.
As far as graphics is concerned, the Sony PlayStation Phone will offer the Adreno 205 GPU, promising up to 41M triangles/sec and 245M 3D pixels/sec.
The Sony PlayStation Phone should also sport a high-resolution multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, HDMI port, 3.5mm audio jack, 512MB RAM, and a built-in camera with 720p HD video recording.
Engadget said the device could even be launched ahead of Chritmas this year, but added that a 2011 release is more likely.
Read the full Engadget report here.
