PlayStation Phone Video Leaked

By Alex Angove

Last updated 06 December 2010

Well folks, we’ve been waiting a while now for the PS Phone, codenamed the Sony Zeus Z1, and things just got a bit more exciting with the latest leaked video.

Whether or not this is just a Sony PR stunt or an actual leak we don’t know. What we do know is that this is a real as life gaming phone. Many phone users have never been fans of a hardware QWERTY slider, opting instead for the on-screen software version. This approach to the slider form, however, has completely changed the game on the competition and dramatically extended the range of appeal for the slider form factor.

So far debate is raging over whether the phone will run on Android v2.3 (gingerbread) or v3.0 (honeycomb), but the safe money's on v2.3 with the rumoured release date of late February. We’re definitely not surprised that this play has been powered by Google via the Android OS. Android was founded on the idea that more companies working through their OS would cause more unique ideas to start to leaking through from a more diverse talent pool. From where we’re standing it certainly looks like they’ve succeeded.

However, as excited as the prospect of a proper gaming phone has us, this handset does seem to have a few issues.

The touchscreen doesn’t appear to be totally responsive. If you watch the video you’ll notice that the demonstrator (we didn’t like the sound of the term “leaker”) has to swipe a few times for the menu to register. When it finally does it’s because he’s slowed down his finger speed.
No accelerometer? The phone only appears to switch between portrait and landscape modes when the landscape controller is slid out. This could be extremely annoying for people who like to text/surf the web in landscape mode. Especially those of us with meatier fingers.
The “Zues Z1” appears to be an extremely thick device. While it’s true that it’d take up less pocket space than carting around a phone and a portable gaming console, we’d still prefer a little less junk in the trunk, purely for pocket comfort.
There's a lot of glare reflecting off of the screen. Whether this is because of the specific lighting in the room or because the screen is just too shiny we're unsure. What we are certain of is that we like our phone displays to be visible in direct sunlight.

It’s important to remember that this phone is months from release, so this is hardly a final product we’re seeing here. Come show-time we could be looking at a completely different device with new parts, better software and a sexier external case and glare protection on the screen.

In the mean time we’ll give Sony the benefit of the doubt and focus on the fact that they’ve actually brought out something new. Granted, a gaming phone was probably inevitable, but Sony has done it first. We expect to see a fair bit of competition showing up to do battle with the PS Phone in the near to mid future.