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Jun

HTC EVO 3D Review Roundup: One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in EVO 3D (Shooter), HTC, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

HTC and Sprint's EVO 3D, the first three-dimensional handset in the US, won't be available in stores for eight more days - but the early reviews have already started flooding in. And I'll tell you this: they're pretty mixed. Some reviewers, such as LaptopMag's Mark Spoonauer, wholeheartedly enjoyed the device, even going so far as to give it an Editors' Choice award. Others, however, weren't nearly as fond of the phone - Gizmodo, upfront as always, called it "only suitable for shooting yourself in the face." Ouch.

Then again, you can't summarize the successor to one of the most successful Android phones ever in just two sentences; for the full scoop, let's take a quick look at five of the best EVO 3D reviews on the net.

Mar

[Rumor] EVO 3D, EVO View Tablet, And Nexus S 4G To Be Revealed By Sprint At CTIA?

Posted by Zak Stinson in Flyer, HTC, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Rumors, Samsung, Sprint

Earlier this week, Sprint sent out an invitation to a special release event at the CTIA WIRELESS 2011 conference later this month. After a less than amazing showing at CES, and the "innovative" move they made with the Echo, Sprint is due for a highly anticipated device to come to their users. Thanks to an anonymous tip received by Engadget (though in no way confirmed or proved credible), you may now start anticipating.

Nexus S 4G

Last year, after flirting with the idea of carrying the first "Google phone", Sprint dumped the Nexus One and went with the EVO 4G.

Feb

Is Two-Hour Battery Life Holding Back The Thunderbolt Release?

Posted by Zak Stinson in News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been quite the uproar over the HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon's first LTE phone. Most of the talk has been centered around the shipping date, with a rumoured release that slid from February 14th to the 24th to the 28th, then on to March 4th and 10th. After all this anticipation and disappointment, we may finally have a clue as to what is keeping this beast in its pen.

According to Engadget's sources, test units of the Thunderbolt are getting absolutely horrid battery performance. With reports of a full charge sometimes lasting two to three hours, testers of the new handset are said to be carrying another phone just to make it through the day.

Feb

[Rumor] Sony Working On 'S2,' A Dual-Screen Android Tablet

Posted by Zak Stinson in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, S2, Sony, Tablets

Last Updated: June 30th, 2011

Hot on the heels of the mock-up leak for the PlayStation certified "S1," Engadget has caught wind of another Android-powered Sony tablet currently in the works. Continuing with the theme of wacky design, the device is rumored to be a clamshell-style, dual-touchscreen device. Each display will measure 5.5 inches, and when closed, the device has a cylindrical form factor reminiscent of the giant crayon-shaped calculator I had when I was 5.

Engadget's sources say that it will be running a custom version of Honeycomb with apps that are optimized for the dual screens. Google Maps is supposed to display a map on one screen while showing turn-by-turn navigation instructions or Streetview on the other.

Feb

Engadget Reviews The Motorola Atrix 4G, Finds A Great Phone, Highly Overpriced Gimmicky Docks, Awful Data Speeds, Bootloader Lock, And Lots Of Crapware

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Atrix 4G (Olympus), Motorola, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

One of the few tech blogs who managed to get their hands on Motorola's upcoming AT&T flagship - the Atrix 4G - is, of course, Engadget. The reviewer, unsurprisingly, is the infamous cool geek and editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky, who, from my experience reading Engadget's reviews, does a good overall job but fails to go into those details that matter to most Android users. The Atrix 4G review is exactly what I had expected, and I'm going to summarize it and save you 20 minutes reading it.

The Good

The phone is blazing fast, which is unsurprising, considering its 2 cores and 1GB of RAM.

Feb

Best Buy Ad Leaks Ridiculous Activation Requirements And $799.99 Price Tag Of Motorola XOOM

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

A leaked ad from Best Buy shows that the Motorola XOOM will be priced at $799.99. It also confirms rumours that the tablet will be available in-store from February 24th.

The ad seems to be the real deal (complete with the trademarked Best Buy yellow price labels), however we couldn't help but notice a few glaring spelling mistakes. Either the ad is a fake, which is unlikely at this point, or Best Buy needs to fire its current spell-checker.

In any event, the above confirms that the Honeycomb tablet will only support Verizon's 3G network at launch but will be upgradeable to 4G at a later date.

Jan

Xperia Play Prototype Previewed, So Far Only Plays PSX Games

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Games, News, Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone)

Engadget was lucky enough to get its hands on a prototype of Sony's much-anticipated PlayStation Phone (believed to launch as the Xperia Play), and while not everything on the unit they got was finalized (Wi-Fi was completely broken), it does give us a pretty good idea of what to expect when the phone officially launches.

First, we have some of the most important specs:

4.0" 854 x 480 LCD display
Single-core 1 GHz processor (believed to be Qualcomm) with Adreno 205 GPU
512 MB RAM
Android 2.3 with Timescape UI
5 megapixel camera

That single-core processor might seem disappointing with all the excitement surrounding Tegra 2 phones, but the Xperia Play still manages to get high marks in a number of benchmark tests (including a Quadrant score of 1,689).

Jan

Hulu Plus Confirmed For Android 2.2

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Applications, News

Having long been rumored, Hulu Plus for Android was finally confirmed during Samsung's press conference at CES. During the Keynote, Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar demoed the app running on the Samsung Galaxy S, announcing, for the first time, that the subscription service was being developed for Android.

Google and Hulu have not always seen eye-to-eye, so it was fortuitous that Samsung was able to mend the bridges and bring this amazing service to the Android platform.

Image courtesy of Gadgetsteria

According to Hulu's Blog, Hulu Plus will be available on select Android mobile phones (Android 2.2 and above) in coming months.

Jan

Sony Ericsson Announces Razor-Thin Smartphone: The Xperia arc

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia Arc (Anzu, X12)

Sony Ericsson has announced its first of a "new generation" of Xperia smartphones, christened the Xperia arc. The super-slim device measures 8.7 mm at its thinnest point and weighs just 117 grams. It packs:

1GHz Qualcomm processor
4.2" 854 x 480 display
8.1 MP camera (with HD video recording and LED flash)
8GB microSD (upgradeable to 32GB)
FM radio, Bluetooth, and GPS
Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

Engadget managed to spend some time with the Xperia arc, and they highlighted the fact that it's "really thin."

Sony Ericsson phones generally have better-than-average cameras and the arc appears to be no exception: it ships with the "Exmor R" mobile sensor with a f/2.4 lens, enabling "the capture of high quality, bright pictures and HD videos even in low light."

Just a short while ago, Sony Ericsson confirmed that they would not be updating their Xperia X10 line of smartphones beyond Android 2.1 Éclair, so it's unclear whether the Xperia arc will be upgraded beyond Gingerbread.

Dec

Gingerbread OTAs Not Rolling Out Just Yet - Arriving In The Coming Weeks. Yes, That Means Even You, Nexus One Owners

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

Earlier today, Engadget posted a pretty sensationalist article (now deleted) implying that Gingerbread OTA updates are being streamed down to Nexus One device owners. Since I haven't seen a single confirmation yet, I grew more and more skeptical. To put an end to all rumors, Google's own Reto Meier just sent out a tweet refuting any OTA rumors and putting the Gingerbread update timeline as "in a few weeks":