White Sony Ericsson Xperia Play coming exclusively to O2

O2 has used the magic of Twitter to announce that it will exclusively offer the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play in white.

O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Three have all confirmed they will be offering the gaming handset. But O2 will be the only one to offer the phone in its crisp white frock, which, we have to say, looks rather charming. The other operators will stock black or silver versions of the handset. 

In case you missed the wild party that was Mobile World Congress and are unaware of this gaming-phone malarkey, then let us fill you in. The Xperia Play -- or PlayStation Phone as it's also known -- is a smart phone designed with the mobile gamer in mind.

The handset packs slide-out, PSP-style controls. It also has a bright and clear 4-inch screen, with a resolution of 854x480 pixels. Under the hood, you'll find a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM for powering your gaming.

The Xperia Play runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It's a solid operating system that offers a wealth of features, including a fantastic Web browser with Flash support, and access to the Android market, which means you can download thousands of apps and widgets.

You'll also get access to the PlayStation Suite store. From there you can download all the games you need, including many classic PSOne titles.

There's no word on pricing yet from any of the operators, but we don't imagine this phone will come cheap in any colour.We'll just have to wait and see how many kidneys we need to sell when it becomes available in April. In the meantime, click through to the next page to see the white Play from behind.