Sony Ericsson PlayStation phone Zeus Z1 defies the gods in leaked video
A mysterious gamer has written himself into geek mythology with a video showing the much-anticipated Sony Ericsson Zeus Z1 PlayStation phone in action.
By Zeus! A mysterious gamer has risked the wrath of the gods -- well, Sony Ericsson -- with a video showing the much-anticipated PlayStation phone in action, and naming it the Sony Ericsson Zeus Z1.
The phone, based on the Sony PSP Go portable games console, is set to be the first serious attempt to unite the gaming handheld with the mobile phone since the Nokia N-Gage was cast down to Hades for the unforgivable sin of being a bit pants.
The video shows the mystery user revealing the slider phone and familiar PSP controls to the world, like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and gifting it to mankind. Let's hope he doesn't end up chained to a rock in Sony headquarters with fanboys eating his liver.
The phone is running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the next version of Google's mobile operating system, although it's odd that it says 'Gingerbread' instead of '2.3'. That may be the version that appears on the finished phone, or it may change when the phone hits shelves. The phone shows the model number 'Zeus', which again could turn out to be the street name of the phone or could be a working codename.
The Zeus is set to pack a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 512MB of RAM and 1GB of storage. The video shows off the camera, which according to metadata spotted on a photo-sharing site clocks in at 5 megapixels. The screen measures about 4 inches across.
There's a dedicated PlayStation app, but the mystery phonegamer doesn't show off any games. They'll be bought and downloaded from an all-new Sony Marketplace, it seems.
As well as the usual Google app icons, there's a mystery app called 'Arena Olympus' in the top left of the app home page. That could be another Greek legend reference, or maybe it's something to do with the mythology-themed PlayStation game series God of War. We also wonder what's going to happen with that apparently wasted space between the D-pad and buttons. Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
The PlayStation Zeus Z1 is set to challenge the gods at the Mount Olympus of mobile phones that is Mobile World Congress in February. Your lightning bolt-throwing Crave will be there to bring your all the latest phone news and reviews -- let's hope that, unlike Odysseus, it doesn't take ten years to get home.
We wish we had his chutzpah though: convincing his wife he was late home because of gods, sirens and the cyclops is pretty impressive -- we'll try that the next time we fall asleep on the night bus.