After using the Xperia Play for about a year now, here’s the verdict:
First thing, the game pad is wonderful. Overall the phone is quite zippy with almost no lag (we’ll get to why it’s just "almost" later). It has enough RAM for most application and gaming. 512 MB is the RAM size on PS3 and I wonder why people doubt the xperia play can’t be fast enough with the same amount of RAM. 3G and HSPA+ work perfectly, the phone switches between available bands automatically just like most other mid to high range smarties on the market. The Sony Ericsson skin on stock Android is pretty decent compared to HTC sense and Motorola’s psychedelic motoblur.
Now for the bad. The phone feels too fragile. Hold it with a tighter grip and you can feel it crackling almost like a cheap plastic bottle. I don’t use condom like covers on my phone and so the entire phone is a fingerprint magnet. Maybe this won’t be a problem for people who use rubber protection on their phone (don’t count on me on not making a raunchy comment about it though ;) ). The phone is excellent when it comes to gaming but that’s just a fanboy statement since there are hardly a dozen games that can take full advantage of the game pad. One minor issue is that games sometimes lag on this "built for gaming" smartphone. The reason is not entirely Sony’s fault though. I figured it was the bloody Android itself. People who are used to the Android smarties would notice it’s not possible to close maps, mta, facebook (if u ever logged into it), play store and a bunch of other unnecessary apps running in the background even if you are not hooked up to a network. So when you are playing a game, the android core kills these apps to make room in the RAM for the game, but even android can’t kill these ever running apps and they repeatedly start up and this sometimes hogs the cpu. It can be fixed with a custom ROM though but it’s still a bada*s problem with Android. Coming to the camera, don’t even expect anything more than a below average shot that looks crappier than a K800i (remember the java phone from Sony Ericsson which had a 3.2M camera?) . The battery doesn’t stand up to the expectations of a gaming phone. Xperia Play has a below average battery that wouldn’t last more than a day of light use and no more than an hour or an hour and a half with gaming. Basically the battery life defeats the purpose of being a "gaming phone" when all other better smarties which don’t have a gamepad would last a little more than this clunky fragile gaming phone.
Probably that should be enough ranting for now. Overall it’s a good phone with quite a few weaknesses. If you are not too much into gaming (if you are, get a vita or a nintendo DS) it’s just like any other average smartphone (better than the iphone clone from the washing machine maker) with a gamepad. I wouldn’t say this phone has something special though. Would I recommend this phone to you? yes if I want to sell mine. No if I was too honest.
P.S As for sound reception/style and other stuff my scores can speak for themselves.