Wirefly's website (the online cellular phone dealer) has a new marketing page comparing features between the iPhone and the Android-based Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (a.k.a The PlayStation Phone). It indicates that the Xperia Play will be coming to Verizon. This news comes just days ahead of Sony Ericsson's official release of the phone at MWC on the 14th where carriers for the phone are expected to be announced. Here are some of the chief differences as quoted from Wirefly's site:
* Display: The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play will have a 4-inch, 480 x 854-pixel resolution LCD screen, one of the higher-resolution displays among Android phones. The Apple iPhone 4 is no slouch in the display department however, with a 3.5-inch LCD display that has the highest resolution of any smartphone: 640 x 960 pixels. Although higher resolution, the iPhone 4′s display is considerably smaller than that of the Xperia Play.
* Operating system: The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play will ship with Android 2.3, currently the fastest available version of Google’s open operating system. The Apple iPhone 4 uses Apple’s proprietary iOS4.2, which is only used on the iPhone.
* Processor and RAM: Both the Apple iPhone 4 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play use single-core 1GHz processors. Both the iPhone 4 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play have 512MB of processor RAM.
* Keyboard: Both the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and the Apple iPhone 4 have on-screen virtual QWERTY keyboards. The Xperia Play has a slide out game controller that’s compatible with the Sony PlayStation console.
* Storage Space: The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play ships with 8GB of on-board storage and has a microSD slot for memory expansion. The Apple iPhone 4 is available with either 16GB or 32GB of on-board storage, but it has no expansion slot for memory.
* Camera: Both the Apple iPhone 4 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play have 5-megapixel cameras, and both devices can record video with 720p HD capability. Both the Xperia Play and the iPhone 4 have 640 x 480-pixel front-facing cameras for video chat.
* Battery: The capacity of the lithium-ion battery in the Apple iPhone 4 is 1,400 mAh and it is not user-replaceable. The battery in the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is a 1,500 mAh lithium-ion type that can be replaced by the user.
The specs on the Xperia Play definitely don't seem very 'beefy' compared to a lot of the new phones coming out soon, or even a few that are already in the retail channel. It seems that the 'marketing gimmick' behind this phone is simply the built-in PlayStation-like controller. I suspect that this phone will simply be a rushed precursor to something more powerful in the future, but it remains to be seen if the 'built-in controller' concept will actually be viable.

What do you guys think? Nail (as in "nailed down a good idea") or Fail?

Source: BGR via Wirefly