Celebrating its 15th anniversary in business, Chinese hardware brand Meizu has launched its 15 series of Android phones. The series doesn’t go the way of numerous other recent devices which offer tall screens and notches cutting into their displays; instead, they feature more traditional front fascias with bezels and a front-facing home button.
The company is talking up its 5.95-inch 1440p 15 Plus, and the 5.46-inch 1080p 15 with Super AMOLED displays made by Samsung; there’s also a third cheaper model, the 5.46-inch 1080p 15 Lite.
The 15 Plus and 15 both come with a 12-megapixel + 20-megapixel dual camera system on the rear, with 3x optical zoom, Sony sensors, and ring flash lighting LEDs. The smaller Meizu 15 is powered by the mid-range Snapdragon 660 octa-core processor, along with an Adreno 512 GPU and 4GB RAM; the larger 15 Plus features a Samsung Exynos 8895 chip (the same as the one found in the Galaxy S8 from last year), as well as a Mali-G71 GPU and 6GB RAM. The 15 Lite comes with a Snapdragon 626 processor and 4GB RAM.
All three models share a couple more interesting features: a 20-megapixel selfie camera, 3.5mm headphone jacks, and a new linear vibration motor for the front fingerprint reader-home button combo, which the company says simulates the feeling of pressing down on a physical button.
The devices will ship with the latest edition of Meizu’s Android-based OS, Flyme, which is now at version 7, and brings features like system-wide night mode, an App Index for quickly surfacing your favorite apps with gestures, and an intelligent photo gallery that indexes faces and organizes photos by location and subject matter.
With that, it sounds like Meizu might have some strong contenders to rival popular mid-range handsets from the likes of LG and Motorola. We liked the M6 Note from last year , which impressed us with its natural Portrait mode despite being a budget device with a low price, so we have high hopes for this range in 2018. They’re going on sale soon, with pre-orders open now in China.
The Plus starts at 3,000 yuan (~$475), while the 15’s 64GB model retails at 2,500 yuan (~$400); the Lite will set you back by 1,700 yuan (~$270). You can find out more about the 15 series on Meizu’s site .
Huge virtual reality entertainment center debuts in Australia
A new “free-roam” gaming center in Melbourne, Australia called Zero Latency has opened to the public, designed to offer a genuinely immersive virtual reality experience in a large space. Its players testify that it’s “like literally being in a video game.”
The center — tested in advance of its public opening by CNET — inhabits a 4,300-square-foot warehouse containing 129 PlayStation Eye cameras. The game consists of a one-hour experience for four or six players. Online sales began in early August, and CNET reports that within a week, hundreds had signed up for $88 (Australian) or $65 (US) per person.
Players strap on a backpack containing an Alienware Alpha PC — this is what actually renders the virtual environment for the users’ Oculus Rift DK2 headsets.
The name alone should offer a clue of how seriously Zero Latency takes immersion. Latency — the lag time between when you act and the virtual environment reflects your action — is a huge deal for VR creators because the delay can destroy the immersive quality of the experience, allowing users too much awareness of the real world.
Indeed, the center is riffing off of this as much as possible, challenging users with the following:
The facility — three years in the making — may be the first, but will not be the last. The Void , with a similar idea in mind, plans to open a VR gaming center in Salt Lake City by next year.
➤ Immersive Virtual Reality gaming center opens in Australia [Engadget]
Read next: Game companies are having a blast with Oculus Rift
Get ready to stream God of War III to your PS Vita and PlayStation TV
Sony has announced that it’s bringing its PlayStation Now game streaming service to the portable PS Vita game system as well as the PlayStation TV microconsole.
The subscription-based service has been available across the US for a year on PS3 and PS4 consoles and a beta arrived in the UK last month. With today’s launch, users can now stream titles to their TVs and handheld gaming machines for $19.99 a month, with a seven-day free trial.
In addition to the new hardware support, PlayStation Now has added five more games to its library, which now spans over 125 titles.
The one you’ll want to check out is the epic third-person adventure God of War III — but there’s also Dynasty Warriors 8 , MX vs. ATV Supercross , Bomberman Ultra , and The Last Guy to lose whole weekends to.
➤ PS Now Subscription Coming to PS Vita, August Lineup Detailed [PlayStation Blog]
Read next: Sony’s Playstation Now game streaming service beta launches in the UK