Hasta La Gadget!

Talk about taking your sweet time. LaCie actually announced that it would be shipping a USB 3.0 version of its 2big USB 3.0 RAID monster in December of last year, but as you well know, the adoption of SuperSpeed has been less than blisteringly fast. At long last, the storage mainstay has decided to start shipping the aforementioned device, available with a pair of 7200rpm HDDs (up to 4TB total) and a promised maximum transfer rate of 205MB/sec. In case that’s too heavy for your soul, the now-available d2 USB 3.0 might be the perfect alternative. The design won’t be unfamiliar to LaCie loyalists, but the single-drive unit is making its way out in 1TB ($149.99) and 2TB ($249.99) sizes with a maximum transfer rate of 130MB/sec. So, you in? Or do you still think eSATA may swoop in and destroy USB 3.0, Blu-ray style?

Continue reading LaCie ships 2big USB 3.0 RAID drive and d2 USB 3.0 external HDD

LaCie ships 2big USB 3.0 RAID drive and d2 USB 3.0 external HDD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell’s latest innovation is this clever, transforming tablet/netbook: the Inspiron Duo. Instead of a complicated hinge, the screen flips on an axis inside its own bezel, swapping from regular clamshell laptop to keyboard-hiding touch-screen.

At heart, it’s a netbook, with a ten-inch screen and an Atom N550 CPU running Windows 7 Premium. And there, in that last point, is the problem. Windows 7 makes a great netbook OS, but it also makes a terrible tablet OS. Yes, it technically has built-in support for touch-screens but unless you have a finger the size and shape of a mouse pointer you’ll get frustrated, fast.

On the other hand, if you’re just watching movies or reading the internet then even Windows can’t ruin the tablet form-factor for you. There’s no word from Dell on price or availability, but the fact that it’s called the Inspiron Duo and that it already has a nice product shot makes me think it should be ready to buy pretty soon.

Dell’s Atom-powered Inspiron Duo: 10-inch netbook [Engadget]

See Also:

• Dell's Streak Tablet Is Priced Like a Phone
• Dell's Tablet Aims to Stick It to Apple's iPad
• Hands On: Dell 'Streak' Tablet Feels Like Supersized Phone …
• Dell Tablet To Debut on AT&T

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Nokia’s official marketing documentation for the just-announced DT-600 says that you can “charge in style” and “enjoy the life with full battery.” After checking it out here at Nokia World, we don’t think we could say it any better ourselves. The device is basically a rubber tray for setting your battery-dependent gadgets with a squid-like array of charging cables coming out of the corners; there are very similar products to this on the market already, but Nokia’s got a couple trump cards up its sleeve. Actually, one of them is less of a trump card and more of a Wild Draw Four: although one cable is micro-USB, two of the others are permanently connected 2mm Nokia jacks, an odd decision considering that modern Nokias are moving away from those to micro-USB — as are most manufacturers — so we guess they’re expecting you to keep a few antiques juiced up.

The other differentiator, though, is that you don’t need to snake your own chargers through the mess — the fourth cable is interchangeable and connects to one of two USB ports on the side, and you can use the other port for a fifth cable that isn’t routed through one of the four corners’ holes. Nokia includes mini-USB, LG, Sony Ericsson, and two flavors of Samsung connectors for this one; Apple’s noticeably missing, but we’re sure these guys had zero interest in licensing the 20-pin design — and obviously, you can just use your own cable if you like. In a nod to Mother Nature, the DT-600 burns no power when devices aren’t connected, but if you’re in the US, tough luck — there’s no plan in place for availability there. Hit up the gallery for a few in-the-wild shots (taken at Nokia’s Experience Lounge coffee bar, by the way, so the phones weren’t the only things getting juiced up).

Nokia Charging Plate DT-600 hands-on: ‘charge in style’ is all you need to know originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve just gotten to grips with HTC’s luscious new Desire Z slider (you’ll know it as the T-Mobile G2 in the US) and it is indeed a slab of finely crafted metal. That Z hinge that the company is touting feels pretty robust, requiring a reassuring amount of torque to get it to spring open. And it really is a spring, it flips from closed to open instantaneously. The QWERTY button array feels pretty terrific, giving us just the right amount of responsiveness, while separation between keys feels a lot more spacious than the images would lead you to believe. It’s also worth noting that, exactly as HTC promised in its keynote, the Desire Z has one of the most accessible top rows in the slider smartphone business. We honestly didn’t think there was a difference between typing on it versus any of the other rows. That’s quite the feat, and easily positions this as the best competitor to Nokia’s newly announced E7. Are we witnessing a QWERTY renaissance? We sure hope so. Check out the gallery below and hands-on video after the break.

Update: Added a second video to demonstrate the Z’s ridiculously fast startup and more under Android 2.2 Froyo.

Continue reading HTC Desire Z hands-on (update: more pics and video)

HTC Desire Z hands-on (update: more pics and video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nikon’s second big announcement today (the other is the hot new D7000) is the SB700 speedlight, a smaller version of the great SB900 and an overpriced replacement for the SB600 (although the SB600 is still available).

Nikon makes some of the best flashes around: even some Canon shooters prefer them to Canon’s own if they plan to use them manually, but they probably won’t be buying this one, as it has one big feature missing: a sync-jack. Over at the Strobist blog, flash-nerd David Hobby has been crawling through the specs and finds that there is no way to trigger the flash off-camera with a standard PC-cord. You’ll either need to use a compatible Nikon camera to trigger it remotely, buy an expensive proprietary cable or use the “SU-4″ mode, which turns the flash into a dumb slave unit.

Apart from this odd move, the SB700 looks good. If you’re familiar with the SB900’s screen-and-control-dial interface, you’ll be at home here. In fact, in some ways the new flash looks better than its big brother, with dedicated switches for changing modes and for illumination patterns (like the SB900, you can choose between standard, center-weighted and “even”).

There’s also a motorized zoom, AF-illuminator and the ability to act as a commander for other, off-camera flashes (useful if you ponied up the cash for the top-end D3 which doesn’t have a built-in flash to do this). And lastly (well, lastly for this post: Nikon flashes have a veritable confusion of options if you dig in) there speedlight comes with a few hard color filters, replacing the flimsy ones that come with the SB900. The price for this new flash is $330, compared to around $220 for the SB600 and around $460 for the SB900.

SB-700 product page [Nikon]

Nikon SB-700 Speedlight Misses it By This Much [Strobist]

See Also:

• Hands-On With the Quad-Sync LumoPro Flash

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.