If you've been all excited about Daydream — the new mobile VR platform from Google — and are looking forward to getting your hands on with it on your latest Android-powered flagship smartphone, then you're in for some bad news. The current crop of flagship smartphones will not be "Daydream ready."
The news comes straight from the horse's mouth, Google's VR chief Clay Bavor, who revealed to publication RoadToVR that for the platform to work, consumers will possibly have to purchase a new handset. It doesn't matter if you have a top-notch handset that is feature-rich. Daydream will not be compatible with existing Android smartphones.
"I can tell you that there will most likely not be any retroactively Daydream-ready phones. We want to hold a very high quality bar, and for that to happen all the components need to be just right. So, to VR fans, I would say, hold off for a few months to get your next phone ... and get a Daydream-ready phone," says Bavor.
So why will the current crop of flagship smartphones not be compatible with the ambitious VR standard from Google or be "Daydream ready," you ask? Because as Google revealed previously, there are several requirements for a smartphone to meet the standard. For starters, the device needs to have a low-persistence display, several high-quality and low-latency sensors, as well as an SoC that offers high-end performance.
Moreover, the smartphone should be running on the Android N OS so that the VR Mode needed for Daydream to work can be enabled.
One may argue that most recent flagships would meet the bar when it comes to chipset and display requirements. However, a possibility exists that the built-in sensors are not up to the mark as per Google's requirements.
Presently, Google only lists the Nexus 6P as being supported for Daydream — that too for developers. Interestingly, Bavor did not clarify whether the handset would be Daydream ready upon the mobile VR platform's official release.
ZTE, however, may be a few steps ahead of the game, as it recently announced that its ZTE Axon 7 will be Daydream ready.
