16
Feb
ps200

Sony's tablet discussions never picked up much steam. The company has tantalized the community with its intent to mash its future portables with the monster PlayStation brand, except nothing beyond the word of mouth has surfaced to show any other indication of Sony’s tablet development. Until today, that is: Engadget has finally got the scoop on a still-internal Sony tablet, dubbed the “S1.” Though some details are apparently known, no true image of the thing exists in the wild except for this mockup:

stem1

The first question: What the heck is that curve up there at the top? Apparently, it's there to give the tablet a personal touch, so that it feels a little less alien and serves to aid in its usability.

16
Feb
Tablets

The cat's out of the bag on Dell's upcoming (all the way into early 2012) Android offerings thanks to leaked slides showing their phone and tablet roadmaps. Incidentally, the slides also reveal that the next version of Android (after Honeycomb) will be called "Ice Cream" instead of what we previously though, "Ice Cream Sandwich." It's interesting to know that devices are already being planned to run on this technically unannounced version of Android, but what will surprise you even more are the amazing specs.

These are the specs of Dell Hancock, expected to be released in Q3 of this year:

  • Android Ice Cream
  • Dual-core processor
  • 4.0" qHD display
  • 8 megapixel rear camera
  • 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera
  • 1080p video capture
  • Slide-out QWERTY keyboard

The Millennium, pegged for release in Q4, is similar:

  • Android Ice Cream
  • Dual-core processor
  • 4.3" qHD display
  • 8 megapixel rear camera
  • VGA front-facing camera
  • 1080p video capture
  • DLNA capable

There are pictures of each device, but don't expect to learn anything about Ice Cream from them - they appear to be running the same Dell Stage UI as the Streak and Streak 7, which is based on Froyo.

16
Feb
Screen shot 2011-02-16 at 3.38.23 PM

Told you so - the price of the XOOM will indeed be significantly less than $1,200 (at least according to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha). In fact, if you decide to take the WiFi-only route, the tablet will cost just $600 - half of the price Best Buy put up (and subsequently took down). 3G connectivity will come with a $199 premium (jacking the price up to $799), though it's worth noting that the XOOM's radio will see an LTE upgrade sometime down the road.

Of course, there's probably one question on your mind: "How does this look next to Apple's pricing?" Well the cost of the WiFi-only model actually compares favorably - a 32 GB WiFi iPad costs $599, so the two tablets will be neck-to-neck.

16
Feb
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HTC Nexus One, the predecessor to the Gingerbread-sporting Samsung Nexus S, has been teased with the Android 2.3 over-the-air upgrade ever since Gingerbread was released. At the time, we anxiously waited for the upgrade that seemed to be imminent, but weeks flew by without any news. Then, Google said it was coming "in the next few weeks," but months slowly churned, and thousands of Nexus Ones owners are still GBreadless.

How many times can you cry wolf before people stop listening to you? I don't know, but I hope this is the last time - Mobile Crunch reports that multiple sources, including Googlers on location at MWC in Barcelona, claim the 2.3 OTA is coming to our precious N1s by the week's end or early next week at the latest.

15
Feb
images (1)

Update: Just like that, the page has been pulled! Hopefully we'll still see the update soon - it'd be embarrassing to have this drama drag on any longer.

Looks like Kies Mini is the path Samsung has decided to take with the Galaxy S Froyo updates (at least in the US) - first, the Vibrant got its 2.2 fix via the Windows-only software, and now it appears that the Captivate will soon join the club. That's right: according to a recently published page on Samsung's own support site, Android 2.2 for the Captivate will roll out via Kies Mini rather than a standard OTA method.

15
Feb
netflix-lg-revolution
Last Updated: February 16th, 2011

Want Netflix on your current Android device? Too bad - as LG and Qualcomm told Engadget, the Netflix app will not be available on existing Android hardware (at least not officially).

Apparently, future Qualcomm CPUs will include additional DRM libraries that no current smartphone processor has, making the decision slightly more understandable (though still extremely disappointing). There's still no word on exactly what processors will support Netflix, but we do know that the LG Revolution will be compatible with it - meaning that the app works with single-core chips.

Disappointing news? Sure, but if it's any comfort, the app does look pretty sweet - check out Engadget's hands-on video:

Source: Engadget

15
Feb
image
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.
15
Feb
thunderbolt_wirefly_thumb

Last week our friends at WireFly unboxed the HTC Thunderbolt, but spent little time actually using the device. They left us with a few tantalizing tidbits though, saying "this phone cranks," and promising a full video review, as well as head-to-head comparisons with the iPhone 4 and the EVO 4G. Yesterday, the last of the three videos went up - let's take a look.

Video Review

The review video is just over 8 minutes long. The first few minutes are spent running through the system, and from the 4:10 mark onwards, they run some benchmarks and compare the scores to other devices.

15
Feb
2011-02-15 05h05_36
Last Updated: February 16th, 2011

To say the expectations were high for HTC's MWC press conference would be a drastic understatement, especially since the company didn't really announce anything new at CES. So were those expectations met? Personally, I'd have to say "no," but read on to discover the complete specifications of each of their six new devices and decide for yourself.

Update: Now with official HTC videos.

Update #2: Here is the spec sheet from HTC with all the official specs.

Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S

mwc2011htcdesireszz 11x09152289 mwc2011htcwildfires-1297735031

Frankly, HTC's first three announcements - the Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S - are utterly boring devices.

14
Feb
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Last Updated: April 18th, 2011

Earlier today at MWC, LG officially unveiled its most powerful upcoming smartphone: the Optimus 3D. We've already heard of the Optimus 3D before, and even witnessed both decent and disastrously cheesy ads LG put out ahead of the release, but what we didn't know is that the Optimus 3D would end up being the most powerful smartphone currently on the market.

Not only is the phone powered by a 1GHz TI OMAP4 dual-core processor (which seems to be just as beefy, if not beefier than Tegra 2), but it's also the world's first dual-channel and dual-memory Android smartphone to aid those 2 cores and squeeze every last bit of juice out of them.