Gadgets
BlackBerry Leap and the amazing BlackBerry Slider introduced at MWC 2015
Last week, we brought you the news about the BlackBerry Rio Z20 becoming the new BlackBerry Leap, and even though at the time it was just a rumor, it seems we were spot on. The BlackBerry Leap was introduced to the public today at the Canadian company’s press conference, and the all-touch phone is rather impressive, although it’s not what we’re excited about. If you read our BlackBerry Leap news last week, you might remember me saying something about a hidden keyboard smartphone that I was expecting to see at the MWC 2015. Well, it seems BlackBerry agreed with me on the need for such a smartphone, and has unveiled the new BlackBerry Slider, which is exactly the phone I’ve been talking about, even though I had no idea I was right about it. Neat, huh? I’m very excited about this, how about you?
Let’s get the BlackBerry Leap out of the way first, as we were fairly sure about that phone coming to the MWC 2015. We expected a mid-range all-touch smartphone from John Chen and co, and that’s exactly what we got, maybe even a bit better. BlackBerry is targeting those who are just planning on entering the smartphone world with the Leap, and didn’t even say too much about the phone at their conference in Barcelona. Their exhibit and showed focused more on enterprise and software solutions that the company is planning to implement in the future, and with good reason. BlackBerry seems to have much more pull in the smartphone and mobile security industry than in the smartphone industry itself. Nonetheless, we’re glad to see that new non-conventional phones are on their way from the Canadian company.
The BlackBerry Leap
BlackBerry Leap specs include a 5 inch display which has a pretty neat resolution of 1280*720, which adds up to 293 ppi pixel density. The ideal ppi pixel density for the average human eye is above 350 ppi, but the Leap actually looks rather nice, even though it’s below that threshold. The company slapped an 8 MP camera on the rear, which canr ecord 1080p video. The front camera is a standard 2 MP sensor which can also record 720p video if needed. Under the hood, the BlackBerry Leap comes with a Qualcomm Snapdraon S4 Plus processor clocked at 1.5 GHz, and honestly, it’s a rather outdated CPU to put on a current generation phone. Alas, it’s a mid-ranger targeted at young people, according to the speakers at the MWC 2015, so we’ll let that slide this time. When it comes to memory, the Leap gets 2 GB RAM to work with and 16 GB internal storage, which can be expanded to 128 GB with the aide of a microSD card.
The BlackBerry Leap benefits from a 2800 mAh battery unit, which should make for decent usage, but sadly, it’s not user replaceable. It seems new smartphones are gradually abandoning this trend, even though there are many users out there who would rather switch out their batteries whenever they are depleted. Alas, there’s nothing we can do about it, even though there’s tremendous demand. Moving on, the BlackBerry Leap runs on BlackBerry 10 OS, completely equipped with all you need, including BlackBerry Blend and BlackBerry Link. Moreover, the mid-ranger is equipped with LTE. Luckily, the company decided that it would be nice to reveal all that could be necessary about the Leap. That includes pricing. The BlackBerry Leap price is set at around $280, unlocked, which is an acceptable price for a mid-ranger. We would have advised for an even lower price-point for the Leap, because it’s definitely not that special and the mid-range smartphone market is even more competitive than the flagship market, especially when we’re talking about BlackBerry.
This is the Blackberry Slider, more interesting than the BlackBerry Leap
On to the star of the show! We have little information about the BlackBerry Slider, aside from a few demo units we’ve seen on the MWC 2015 floor. But those were enough for us to determine that the BlackBerry Slider is a behemoth of innovation, honestly. As Samsung launched the Galaxy S6 Edge, John Chen is going to counter with the Slider, which has similar dual-edge curved displays, but with the added benefit of a slide-out physical keyboard. That simply makes the BlackBerry Slider one of a kind, and one of the most practical smartphones I’ve ever laid eyes on. To be fair, I’m easily impressed with technology, but hey, who wouldn’t be?
The Slider wasn’t really up for grabs, as BlackBerry still hasn’t finished working on the device, but our insiders tell us that the company will be ready to launch the BlackBerry Slider by the end of April. Take that with a grain of salt, though, because we don’t have confirmation from the company on that. It’s a truly remarkable device and I honestly BlackBerry pairs it with neat, sleek software that will take advantage of both the curved edge displays and the sliding keyboard. As I wasn’t impressed by the HTC One M9, Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, I didn’t expect to feel awed by what BlackBerry unveiled today. This might just be my next phone. I hope it will be priced decently, below $800 unlocked, at least. I would definitely prefer a price as close to $500 as possible, but come on, the BlackBerry Slider price should reflect the innovation and the premium design, not to mention the many uses we might have for this tech. That being said, I’m saving up, that’s for sure. BlackBerry, here I come!
It slides, it glides, it’s got curved edges!
Next up for developer Techland is a big, story-driven fantasy epic. Techland is arguably best known for its popular Dying Light series of open world action role-playing games.
Dying Light 2 was fairly good, with its major issues being that it was extremely hyped up and had a protracted and difficult production cycle. Unfortunately, we don’t have much more information than the image above.
The Polish studio has hired some impressive professionals, including programmers with backgrounds at CD Projekt Red, Ubisoft, and Guerilla Games. The narrative lead on both The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was Karolina Strachya, who is kind of a big deal.
We never stop improving!
Our newest game is set to be a narrative-driven #fantasy epic with an exotic open world ready to be explored. We strive to create a compelling story-focused #AAA title that combines and refines the best aspects of gameplay that Techland is known for. pic.twitter.com/SuJ8vVWbrI
— Techland (@TechlandGames) March 16, 2023
What do you think of this new strategy for Techland the developer?
Project Astrid, allegedly a AAA open-world survival game being created in collaboration with streamers and content makers Mike “Shroud” Grzesiek and Chris “Sacriel” Ball, has been teased by UK company Splash Damage. Since the beginning of the project, both have been involved.
Project Astrid is not much more than a mystery. We shouldn’t anticipate witnessing gameplay any time soon because it is still in the preproduction stage. According to Project Astrid’s creative director, Lance Winter, “Sacriel and Shroud are important members of our development team. They bring a distinct and new viewpoint with them. Also, they’re giving us brand-new perceptions of what gamers and game designers want in real life. These are the authorities in this field.
As Splash Damage has been developing multiplayer shooters for more than 20 years and has produced games like Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, a collaboration with Shroud and Sacriel may certainly result in some intriguing results.
What do you think of the Project Astrid announcement from Splash Damage and the connections to Streamers, Shroud, and Sacriel?
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, an excellent action role-playing game, has received a new patch. It will just take a minute to download and install on a PS5, but it contains a number of tweaks and problem fixes.
A few tiny adjustments to a few features should make things run a little bit more smoothly. The best example is that arrows, projectiles, and consumables will now automatically restock from the store whenever you get close to a Battle Flag.You can now switch locks on during several animation sequences, access the travel screen after winning battles, and more thanks to the patch.
Also, a long list of bug fixes should make the game more enjoyable for those who are affected, and certain balancing adjustments have been made to modify the difficulty in specific regions. The following patch notes show what an extensive patch it is:
Adjustments/Additional Features
- Added a feature that automatically restock arrows/projectiles and consumable items from the storehouse upon accessing a Battle Flag.
- Made it possible for players to switch lock-on to another target during the animation sequence for Fatal Strikes, deflects (in response to an enemy’s Critical Blow), and Divine Beasts Summons.
- Made it possible for players to open the Travel screen from the screen that appears after clearing a battlefield (except for main battlefields cleared for the first time), and then select which battlefield they would like to go to next.
- Added the option to return to the briefing screen before starting Co-op and the option to try the same battlefield again, to the screen that appears after completing a Co-op session.
- Changed the player’s Morale Rank to 20 while at the base, the hidden village.
- Made the following adjustments to the difficulty of the sub battlefield “The Tiger’s Loyal Subjects”:
- Adjustments to the AI
- Adjustments to damage taken from Critical Blows, the parameters for the increase/decrease of Spirit, etc.
- Upward adjustment of the Morale Points acquired by players
Major Bug Fixes
- Fixed crash-prone situations that occurred in certain environments.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to enter areas outside of the current stage from certain locations in some stages.
- Fixed a bug that caused characters to become stuck (in the ground/surrounding objects) in certain locations in some stages, making it impossible for players to progress.
- Fixed a bug that caused the enemies in some stages to be pushed out of the stage, making it impossible for players to progress.
- Fixed a bug that caused guest players in Recruit to become unable to progress upon entering a certain house in the sub battlefield “The Lost Sacred Artifact” until the host player opened the door.
- Fixed a bug that made it possible to exchange items with a Shitieshou every time the player resumes the game from a Battle Flag in the sub battlefield “Fate of the Entertainer.”
- Fixed a bug that occurred during the battle against Zhang Liang in the main battlefield “Village of Calamity” where, if the player went into Spirit Disruption right when they defeated Zhang Liang’s first form, they would remain in Spirit Disruption at the start of the battle against his second form.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Spirit Disruption of “Embodiment of Demonic Qi” to last longer.
- Fixed a bug that could make it impossible for the player to proceed if they summoned the Divine Beast Yinglong right as they died.
- Fixed a bug in which the magnitudes of special effects on emptied embedment slots would sometimes change when loading save data.
- Fixed a bug that prevented embedment on locked equipment.
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes provide fewer embedment slots than there should have been on battlefield clear rewards and accessories in the “Path of the Rising Dragon” difficulty level.
- Fixed a bug that allowed users to sell equipment registered to favorites.
- Fixed a bug that caused the effects of the special effect Set Bonus Requirement Mitigation to accumulate.
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from being able to skip cutscenes upon using certain controls.
- Fixed a bug that caused the number of arrows/projectiles in the player’s inventory to duplicate under certain conditions.
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes make it impossible for the player to obtain some trophies/achievements.
Note: After the update is applied, these trophies/achievements can be obtained by clearing any of the main or sub battlefields. - Fixed a bug that prevented players from saving the parameters for the Upper Lip Edge Thickness and the Lower Lip Edge Thickness after selecting Save in Character Creation.
- Fixed other minor bugs.
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