Hasta La Gadget!

LAS VEGAS — Toshiba this week introduced a high-end notebook powered by the newest Intel chips.

The Satellite A505 is a 16-inch notebook focused on home entertainment. Customers can choose between the Intel Core i3 (2.13GHz dual-core), Core i5 (2.2GHz dual-core) or Core i7 (1.6GHz quad-core) processors.

That’s a lot of numbers, right? What you mostly need to know is the Core i7 is Intel’s high-end mobile chip at the moment, and having a quad-core notebook will be pretty intense. Most premium notebooks last year shipped with dual-core processors, such as Intel’s Core 2 Duo, which is now the previous-generation Intel mobile chip.

The A505 features a high-definition widescreen display and “Resolution+” upconversion software that Toshiba claims will make even standard-definition DVD look more like high-definition. Configurations are available to add a Blu-ray player, an LED backlit keyboard and a slot-loading DVD drive.

The A505 is priced between $770 and $1,250 depending on the options you choose. More specs are as follows:

• Optional NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 1GB DDR3 discrete graphics memory
• Optional NVIDIA GeForce 310M with 512MB DDR3 discrete graphics memory
• 6GB DDR3 memory (max 8GB) memory configurations available
• Premium A/V components and upscale styling
• Two harman/kardon speakers
• Dolby Sound Room audio
• HDMI-CEC output

Photo: Toshiba

The year of the set-top box continues with the release of the frighteningly-named Monsoon Volcano. This sleek back box combines several useful features, including time-shifting, recording, and Internet streaming. Use it to schedule and record programs, then transfer them wirelessly to your smartphone. The company will offer electronic program guide apps for the major smartphones, so that you can set recordings remotely, as well.

The Volcano also let you surf the Web on TV and watch YouTube videos and purchased or rented movies from CinemaNow. Other video apps, such as Boxee, will be added through the year, the company says. Look for the Volcano in March in two configurations: a $199 version with 4GB flash memory and a $299 version with a 250GB hard drive.

We had a chance to sit down with Erick Tseng, Senior Product Manager of Android at Google, who you may remember from that little press event the big G held the other day. We have a pretty detailed conversation on the impetus behind the Nexus One, details on Google’s long-term strategy for its online store, a deep dive on the device itself, and lots more. We’ve split the chat up into three, easy-to-digest parts, so hit the videos after the break and get the full scoop!

Continue reading The Engadget Interview: Erick Tseng, Senior Product Manager of Android

The Engadget Interview: Erick Tseng, Senior Product Manager of Android originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Attention iPhone owners that have been praying for a physical keyboard forever: your prayers have been answers… kind of. Ion Audio has debuted its iType iPhone keyboard at CES, and we can confirm that it does indeed work as advertised. Once you pop your iPhone or iPod touch into the dock at the top of the board, you’re free to type away to your heart’s content — if you’re in the iType app, of course. Unfortunately, because of the closed nature of most of the iPhone platform, you can’t just start typing in any iPhone app; you have to type in the iType app and then copy and paste to the app you want. It’s surely an annoyance, but if you’re sick of the soft keyboard and need some relief, it’s your best option for now.

iType keyboard brings a physical keyboard to the iPhone, but there’s a catch originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tablet-ed out yet? We didn’t think so. MSI has a 10-inch Android tablet on display at CES here. There aren’t many details (like price, release date and internals), but we do know it’s running one of those new Tegra 2 chips. Up front there’s a pretty nice 10-inch capacitive display, which is plenty responsive. Like other tablets we’ve been seeing, the device is a bit thicker and heavier than we’d like, but hopefully that paves the way for some substantial battery life. We might still not know the “why,” but the “how” is certainly coming together.

MSI shows off 10-inch Android tablet running new Tegra chipset originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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