Sony Ericsson tops the gaming charts

The Sony Ericsson W810i handset topped a list of handsets favoured by mobile gamers in the UK in 2006.

Published by wap and web-based mobile gaming portal MobileRated, the top ten handsets for the year feature four Sony Ericsson terminals and four from Nokia. Motorola managed to just sneak one device in the top ten.

Surprisingly, Research In Motion’s (RIM) Pearl was the second most popular handset for gaming, according to the site.

Informa Telecoms & Media handset analyst David McQueen said he believes Sony Ericsson is leading the pack because it has “got the styling (mainly bar-shaped), brands (Walkman, Cybershot, Bravia) and cost right to hit any number of market segments.

“They are also fairly easy to use, probably just behind Nokia in terms of UI, and have the build quality that one would expect from a Sony product,” he said.

The list is based on worldwide customer game downloads from the MobileRated portal. In a year that over 14 per cent of mobile phone owners played a game on their mobile phone, over 1 billion new handsets were sold.

The top ten gaming devices for 2006:

1. Sony Ericsson W810i (3.35%)

2. RIM BlackBerry 8100 Pearl (2.72%)

3. Sony Ericsson K750i (2.60%)

4. Nokia 6600 (2.59%)

5. Motorola RAZR V3 (2.49%)

6. Sony Ericsson K800i (2.30%)

7. Nokia N70 (2.19%)

8. Nokia N73 (1.99%)

9. Sony Ericsson W300i (1.95%)

10. Nokia 6620 (1.92%)

Source: MobileRated