Sony Ericsson Yari preview – the real PSP phone?

Sony Ericsson have announced the brand new Sony Ericsson Yari, a gaming phone that seems in part to be the fabled PSP phone that’s been rumoured for years, while also challenging the likes of the Nintendo DS, the Wii, and er, the PSP itself (probably not what Sony wanted!)

The Yari is a classic looking slider with four buttons, a DPad-like cursor button, and a curious way of playing games – gesture control. By waving your hands in front of the Yari’s screen, you control the player in the game. The Yari also responds to physical movement thanks to its built-in accelerometers, which should give rise to some bizarre games, to say the least!

More details and pictures of the Sony Ericsson Yari after the jump.

Sony Ericsson Yari overview

The Sony Ericsson Yari is being pitched primarily as a games phone. As well as gesture control and physical movement, you can also play games in the standard way using buttons.

When I first heard that the Yari used gesture control as a games interface, I wasn’t entirely convinced. Games require quick responses from the millisecond you hit a button to the game responding to your action. Gesture control has never been overly sensitive at the best of times, least of all on a platform as small and relatively underpowered as a phone.

Having checked out YouTube for some videos, I have to say I’m still not convinced. The game you see in the video below is meant to be equivalent to Wii Fit. It’s an exercise game, with you controlling the exerciser by waving your hands in front of the screen. As you can, not exactly super-responsive, nor particularly interesting! Can’t exactly see you getting fit with it either. I’m worried that this has all the hallmarks of “gimmick” written all over it.

I’ll reserve judgment for the meantime, though, until we see more of the Yari and its games in action.

Downloading games for the Sony Ericsson Yari’

The games themselves come from Sony Ericsson’s new Play Now Arena content distribution system, which lets you browse and download content such as games, videos, movies and tunes. If you’re thinking it’s yet another app store, you’re not far wrong.

Obviously games are going to have to be developed purely for the Yari to make the most of its gesture control. When Nintendo tries the trick (like it did with the Wii), it can pull it opff successfully, as it has more than enough users playing its console to make it worthwhile for the developers to develop games for its unique control system. BUt the Yari though? It’s market is restricted not just to those people who’ve people who’ve actually bought a Yari, but also to those who actively play games and purchase new ones.

In other words, the market’s much smaller, making it unlikely that there will be many games sporting gesture control, as it’s just not worth the developers’ efforts.

Sony Ericsson Yari’s Features

Despite this negativity on my behalf (colour me sceptical when it comes to mobile phone features such as this!), the rest of the specs of the Yari aren’t half bad: it features a 5 megapixel camera, GPS, HSDPA and a plethora of entertainment options such as video recording, movie download, and even support for DLNA, which lets you watch your Yari’s pics and videos from a suitably-equipped TV or PC.

As such, it’s got a good feature-set with an innovative feature in the form of gesture control, and a new key feature for Sony Ericsson in the form of gaming, which it hasn’t done before. If the gesture control turns out to be any good, this could be one tasty phone. If not, file it under g for gimmick! We’ll now soon enough, as the Sony Ericsson Yari’s release date is quarter 4, 2009.

Sony Ericsson Yari’s Specification

Camera

• 5.0 megapixel camera
• Up to 4x digital zoom
• Auto focus
• Face detection
• Geo tagging
• Photo feeds
• Photo fix
• Photo light
• Send to web
• Smile detection
• Video light
• Video recording

Music

• Album art
• Bluetoothâ„¢ stereo (A2DP)
• Music player
• Mega Bassâ„¢
• Music tones (MP3/AAC)
• PlayNowâ„¢
• SensMeâ„¢
• Shake control
• Stereo speakers
• TrackIDâ„¢

Web

• Access NetFrontâ„¢ Web browser
• Bookmarks
• Googleâ„¢ search (from standby)
• Web feeds

Entertainment

• 3D games
• Dedicated gaming keys
• FM radio with RDS
• Java
• Gesture gaming
• Motion gaming
• Music call
• Tracker
• Video streaming
• Video viewing
• Walk mate
• YouTubeâ„¢

Connectivity

• A-GPS
• Bluetoothâ„¢ technology
• DNLA Certifiedâ„¢
• Google Mapsâ„¢
• Modem
• PictBridge
• Synchronisation
• USB mass storage
• USB support

Other

• Size: 100 x 48 x 15.7 mm
• Weight: 115 grams
• Colours: Achromatic Black, Cranberry White
• Main screen: 262,144 colour TFT
• Resolution: 240 x 320 pixels (QVGA)
• Size: 2.4 inches
• Phone memory: Up to60MB
• Memory card support: SanDisk microSDâ„¢
• Talk time GSM/GPRS: Up to 10 hrs
• Standby time GSM/GPRS: Up to 450 hrs
• Talk time UMTS: Up to 4.5hrs
• Standby time UMTS: Up to 450hrs