The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is the first smart-phone in the market that complies with the requirements of the Playstation Suite Initiative to play Playstation certified games. Even though it does not serve as a substitute of one of the more powerful games consoles Playstation and Playstation Portable, it sports all features of an adequate gaming console and addresses smart-phone users who want to have a game pad rather than just a touch-screen for gaming with their mobile or who are not satisfied with the range of games in the Android market.

Telefónica Germany is one of the first telecommunication providers to introduce a rating system in Germany that assesses the environmental and social compatibility of mobile phones. The system is called Eco Index. As a result, and effective immediately, customers can find information on-line about the sustainability aspects of their preferred mobile phone. Starting in autumn, that information will also be available in shops.

If you buy a new iPhone 4 in Germany, you pay at least € 630.00 without plan (check my updated overview). But there is a way to save some money: At stores of the two German operators Telekom (T-Mobile) and O2 Germany you can buy arefurbished iPhone 4 which means the phone is not new, but supposedly as good as new. Compared to buying a new iPhone 4, you can save up to 20 percent when purchasing a refurbished one. On the other hand: There might be warranty and guarantee issues with a refurbished iPhone. Here is a short overview of how much refurbished iPhone 4 cost at Telekom and O2 stores.

Will it be Germany’s Lena again or is her move to try to re-enact last year’s victory in Oslo certain to fail? Will rather the bookies be right who think that Ireland’s pair of identical 19-year-old twin boys Jedward will win the palm with their upbeat number “Lipstick”? Or will French tenor Amaury Vassili get the most votes in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 (ESC)? Tonight, finalists from 25 countries will take the stage in Duesseldorf and millions of viewers will cast their votes by fixed-line phone, mobile phone or SMS. But how much will it cost to cast your vote?

Low-cost provider Tchibo Mobil has launched a new pay as you go tariff for mobile phone users in Germany which replaces the two prepaid and postpaid plans Tchibo had offered over the past few years. Existing customers of Tchibo Mobil with the old 15-cent plan can switch to the new tariff offer on-line or by calling the hotline.

From today on, the current model iPhone 4 is available not just in black, but also in white. It seems crazy that there has been such a hype about a white iPhone 4 for months since this is all just about color: The white iPhone offers the same features as the black one. Here is a short overview of where to buy the white iPhone 4 in Germany and how much it will cost.

The Google Nexus S is the second smart-phone in the line of “Google phones”. The Google Nexus S has been the first Android smart-phone in the German market running on the new Android OS version 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), thus offering new features such as a built-in voice over IP client, an optimized power management and NFC support for mobile payment and information services. This short review on the Nexus S shows you what you can do with the new Android smart-phone.

Conditions couldn’t be worse for the new Nokia E7 which is meant to be the latest smart-phone model of the successful Communicator series of Nokia: Just before launching the E7, the Finnish handset manufacturer declared that it will eventually discontinue building smart-phones with Symbian^3 and rather focus on developing handsets running on the Microsoft OS Windows Phone 7. However, there are still good reasons out there to buy the Nokia E7. Some of these are given in this review on Nokia’s newest Symbian^3 smart-phone.

The smart-phone Vodafone 553 addresses social networking fans. Vodafone Germany is offering the budget smart-phone as part of a prepaid package including a SIM card with pay as you go tariff CallYa for € 79.90. Buyers of the prepaid package and the smart-phone built by Chinese manufacturer ZTE may even get mobile Internet access over the Vodafone network for six months for free.

On first look the Blackberry Bold 9780 and the Blackberry Bold 9700 look as two peas in a pod – if you ignore the black plastic frame of the newer smart-phone. The story of the differences between the Blackberry Bold 9780 and Blackberry Bold 9700 is quickly told: With 512 MB each, the new Blackberry Bold 9780 has twice the size of memory for programs and of internal memory, and instead of a 3-megapixel camera the new Bold smart-phone features one with a 5-megapixel resolution. In this review you will read what I think of the Research in Motion (RIM) smart-phone Blackberry Bold 9780.