We already know the Sony PSP / Playstation phone is quite real, and that we should have a chance to grab this thing sometime in the future. But, according to the photo above, the PSP phone may actually launch sooner than we expected. Initially we were expecting the PSP phone to be announced sometime next year, but the handset may be announced as soon a December 9th.
Expected to be announced at CES 2011 at the very soonest, the Android-based PSP phone may make it in time for the holidays. If this is the case, then we’ll likely begin to hear much more about this handset very soon. Then again, it’s possible that someone is just blowing some smoke, but we’s remaining hopeful that the PSP phone really will get real this year.
We’ve seen prototypes of the mysterious handset, and it’s looking pretty nice – it’s basically a PSP Go with Android thrown onto it. We’re not exactly sure if the handset will be compatible with existing PSP disks, but if it does, let’s hope it’s done somewhat elegantly. Word on the street is that Sony may be prepping an online game store specifically for the device, giving users an easy way to buy and download games right from their phone.
Based off Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the PSP phone may or may not have a customized user interface running on top of it. The UI changes in Gingerbread should allow the Android UI to stand on its own, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
If we do indeed see the PSP phone drop sometime next month, we could imagine that a lot of holiday gift lists may suddenly need to modify themselves a bit. And, I’d imagine that Sony Ericsson will make some serious bank with this device.
Other than this small tidbit of information and the pictures that have leaked so far, we’re still in the dark about real availability, distribution, or anything that would really help us know anything about the phone. If this rumor pans out, we don’t have much longer to wait anyhow.
Who will be running out to grab one of these things for yourself or someone else if it’s released before the holiday shopping season officially kicks off this coming Black Friday? You could always just grab the fake PSP phone if it ends up not being released.
[Via: MobileCrunch]