Hasta La Gadget!

While we weren’t originally cheering fans of the Toshiba TG01‘s somewhat odd “stripey” interface, checking it out in person tells a different tale. It actually makes sense and works surprisingly well, and really, there is a reason why we’ve seen so many Windows Mobile skinning efforts, the shipped interface needs it. Most functions you need can be found in Toshiba‘s homescreen UI or can be added — the video demos some of the options for making changes and panel color choices if the default isn’t tickling your fancy. This handset is thin and light and makes the iPhone we used for some scale pics look positively chubby — it’s like having a PSP-sized display in your pocket. The 4.1-inch Regza-inspired screen is clear, the resistive touchscreen is typical hit and miss with fingertips, video and gaming are fast on the 1GHz Snapdragon processor and look gorgeous. You know, if Toshiba sees fit to add some 3G bands other than the 2100MHz included in the first effort, we could easily see this living — almost unnoticed — in our pockets. We’re still pretty far out from the rumored summer launch of the TG01 so we’re expecting to see some changes between now and then, and we also have some concerns about battery life while driving a screen like this, but for now, wow. Video walkthrough, some gaming action, and a big gallery are just past the break.

Continue reading Toshiba TG01 hands-on and video walkthrough

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video

Toshiba TG01 hands-on and video walkthrough originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A take gander through the LG GD900

(Credit: LG)

If the Invisible Woman needed a cell phone to call the other members of the Fantastic Four, or if Wonder Woman wanted a handset for her namesake jet, they’d be wise to check out one of the latest phones from …

Originally posted at 3GSM blog

When I tried the original Omnia I said it had “a poorly designed interface, lousy response time, buggy software, and it felt cheap and fat on my hand.” The Omnia HD changes some things.

The Samsung Omnia HD still has the same lousy response when it comes to the touch part, even while its screen is capacitive instead of resistive. Many times, the phone will fail responding at the touch. And when it didn’t fail, sometimes the software registered the click but it didn’t respond. The unit was pre-release, but I found the same problem with all the Samsung phones in display (the Beat DJ and the Ultra Touch). I just hope it’s just a beta thing, but I find hard to believe all these phones have such problems with the most basic feature in its design.

And it is too bad, because the Omnia HD has a lot of good qualities hardware wise. Besides de two built-in speakers—which can get really loud, although obviously they are not hi-fi material—, the 8GB/16GB built-in memory, the 32GB microSD memory expansion card slot, or the wireless video and DLNA connectivity, the really amazing thing is the high resolution AMOLED screen. The quality of this QHD 16:9 screen is simply mindblowing. I haven’t seen any telephone—-or any other device, for that matter—which such a clear, colorful screen. The vision angle is amazing, and no matter how much you turn it, the color and contrast remain the same.

The other big feature of the Omnia HD is the video recording in high definition: 720p at 24 frames per second. The quality was really good and clear. Granted, it’s not film material, but it’s hard to believe you can obtain such an amazing picture quality from such a small device.

If Samsung could get their touchscreen act together and get a decent operating system on top of this (Android or maybe Windows Mobile 6.5), they would have a winner. But as long as first hands on impressions go, this great hardware is still in need of matching software.

We just messed around with Nokia’s new N86, and while the form factor and feel of the device seem a little last-gen, there’s no denying the camera’s quality. Some of the soft button the face of the phone are a little difficult for our large fingers to press, but the d-pad is pure quality, as is the generic-looking numeric keypad — T9ers rejoice. In traditional N-series fashion, the slide mechanism is practically perfect, with a meaty, satisfying and easy motion to it, and the general feel of the device, including the seamless glossy front, screams quality. The camera we played with seemed a little glitchy in operation — it’s still pre-production — but the images were excellent. The LED flash won’t be able to handle a large dimly lit room, but can do close-quarters indoors shots just fine, and should match up well with other high resolution shooters in the outdoor arena. The OLED screen, but it might not have been set at full brightness — it’s crisp, but not necessarily vibrant. Overall it’s a “nice” handset, but somehow 8 megapixels alone doesn’t seem to justify another go at this fairly dated and chubby N-series form factor — but maybe that’s just us.

Update: We bumped up the brightness and stacked the phone up against the iPhone 3G and found the N86’s screen to be considerably brighter — another win for OLED! There’s also now some video after the break!

Continue reading Nokia N86 hands-on with video!

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras, Handhelds

Nokia N86 hands-on with video! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, we’ve seen netbooks with integrated WWAN / WiMAX before, but it’s still pretty far left on the “uncommon” scale. Workhorse PC, a little known company that generally sticks to making products for governments and educational institutions, is apparently looking to vie for its piece of the netbook pie with the Certeza MC10. Overall, the 10.1-incher is pretty average, sporting an Atom N270 CPU, 1,024 x 600 resolution panel, up to 2GB of RAM, a 4-in-1 card reader, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, WiFi, Bluetooth and a 4- or 6-cell battery. Keeping it differentiated is the inbuilt WiMAX and WWAN options, not to mention the trio of OS choices (Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP or Windows Vista). The machine will be available starting at $399 (for the Linux model) and will go to around $549 (for the Vista model); regrettably, there aren’t any actual launch dates to speak of.

[Via Laptop Mag]

Filed under: Laptops

Workhorse Certeza MC10 brings WWAN and ExpressCard to netbook scene originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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