Samsung Gear VR For Galaxy S6 Now On Sale For $200

If you’d like to dip your toe into the virtual world ahead of the coming consumer launches of Gear VR, Valve and HTC’s Vive, and the Oculus Rift, the Gear VR Innovator Edition for Galaxy S6 is available toyda. You still need $200, and either a Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge, and a willingness to forgive bumps with a product designed specifically for techie early adopters, but it’s definitely a good way to jump the line if you’re impatient.

The Gear VR headset uses Samsung’s smartphone as part of the brains of the operation, as well as the display. Samsung says users should get better performance out of this VR experience vs. that created with the original Gear VR for the Galaxy Note 4, in part due to the use of the new Exynos Octacore mobile processor in the GS6. Continuous power via USB also means you can use this one for longer immersive sessions, if you find the real world is too lame.

It’s probably a good idea to pick one of these up if you’re a company thinking about developing for mobile VR environments, but most people are probably better off waiting – at least until Samsung and Oculus reveal what they have in store for a consumer Gear VR product later this year.

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Xiaomi's Mi 4i Spreads in Asia

Chinese wunderkind smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is taking its flagship Mi 4i smartphone to Hong Kong and Singapore, with availability slated for next Tuesday. Designed especially for emerging markets, the Mi 4i has been wildly successful in India, where it launched two weeks ago and reportedly sold 40,000 units in less than 15 seconds.

The Mi 4i is the first Xiaomi phone to run Android 5.0, aka "Lollipop," albeit with MIUI 6, Xiaomi's custom skin for the OS.

The device has a 5-inch, 1920 x 1080 Corning OGS Sunlight display with a 178-degree viewing angle.

It runs on an eight-core 64-bit 1.75 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; has 16 GB of flash memory; and includes 4G dual Micro-SIM cards that support 2G, 3G and 4G.

The Mi 4i also has a 13-MP Sony/Samsung rear camera, a two-ten flash, a "torch" function for shooting in the dark, a 5-MP front camera, and a 4.5V 3120 mAh rapid-charging battery claimed to last up to one and a half days.

It costs about US$200.

"It may not be a premium product compared to what multinational or global brands are taking into the market," said Jeff Orr, a senior practice director at "ABI Research", "but Apple's not making a huge push into India and won't necessarily cater or advertise like a Xiaomi, which is a much hungrier brand at this point."