Hasta La Gadget!

Of all the Windows Phone 7 launch devices, AT&T’s HTC Surround is likely the most curious. It’s a landscape slider built on the same basic internals as the rest of its platform siblings, but there’s no keyboard under that screen — the quarter-inch slide reveals an aluminum speaker bar and integrated kickstand, which combine to create a tiny little stereo system of sorts. Mix in Windows Phone 7’s heavy Zune integration, add in a dash of Dolby Mobile and SRS Wow “virtual surround” audio processing, and top it all off with 16GB of internal memory, and you have what might be the ultimate phone for on-the-go media consumption. But does the Surround live up to all that promise? Read on to find out!

This review is primarily of the HTC Surround hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS.

Continue reading HTC Surround review

HTC Surround review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Put bluntly, the Samsung Focus is the first Windows Phone that matters. But how good is it? More »

You may try to disguise your cell phone to your carrier, but they’ll know what you’re using thanks to a unique ID in your handset. On Call tackles this and other questions.

Originally posted at Dialed In

In terms of sheer unchecked enthusiasm, this shot has nothing on this memorable image of the first guy to buy an iPad in China. Still, there’s something to be said about the civility of the whole thing–like a nice lukewarm bowl of oatmeal.

This is the first person in the world to purchase a Windows Phone 7 handset. The shot is from a store in New Zealand. Everyone seems pretty content about the whole thing. There may or may not have been an orderly queue involved. It’s hard to say for sure.

Well, we didn’t exactly have high hopes when we got first glimpse at the CVS LookBook from a leaked flier, and our lowered expectations have now been satisfied. The Digital Reader has taken the thing for a spin and, as it turns out, it’s an ever so slightly modified version of the Literati that scored its own terrible review just a few weeks ago. The $150 CVS version suffers the same issues, including a complete inability to read e-books downloaded to SD card or copied onto internal memory. Also, battery life is poor, performance is slow, the margins are off, and there’s no web browser. Positives? Well, it has physical buttons for page turning and… yeah. With the Kindle just a click away at $139, it’s hard to see anyone wanting the LookBook, you may be tempted while picking up your ‘scripts.

Shocker! CVS Lookbook e-reader reviewed, sucks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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