Hasta La Gadget!

Acer’s just announced a couple of new Android smartphones that are heading to the other side of the pond. Pictured on the left is the Froyo-powered Liquid Mini which — as the name says for itself — sports a humble 3.2-inch 480 x 320 capacitive LCD touchscreen, along with a 600MHz Qualcomm 7227 chip, 512MB of RAM and ROM each, and a 5 megapixel camera that records 480p video on the back. On top of DLNA connectivity for your home entertainment setup, the usual wireless goodness like WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and FM radio are also present. Potential British buyers will be able to pick from one of the five color options — blue, white, pink, yellow, and black — when the Liquid Mini ships in April, with pricing to be announced.

The beTouch E210 on the right comes with a portrait keyboard plus trackpad, but users will have to make do with a less thrilling set of specs: you get a 2.6-inch 320 x 240 resistive touchscreen (oh dear), an underwhelming 416MHz ST Ericsson PNX6715 processor, 512MB ROM, 256MB RAM, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. But like the Liquid Mini, the Froyo-laden E210 also has WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and FM radio. Keep an eye out for it and its price come March in the UK..

Continue reading Acer announces Liquid Mini and beTouch E210 Android Froyo phones

Acer announces Liquid Mini and beTouch E210 Android Froyo phones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

LAS VEGAS — Sometimes, April Fools’ Day dreams do come true.

Less than a year after ThinkGeek created an arcade gaming cabinet for iPad as part of its annual April 1 shenanigans, Ion Audio has partnered with both the geek shopping site and Atari to bring forth the real thing.

The iCade — yup, that’s the same “product” name as the ThinkGeek gag version — looks like a miniaturized version of any typical arcade machine. The top flips open, you slide the iPad in, and wireless Bluetooth connectivity does the rest. Via the joystick and eight arcade buttons on the front console panel, you’ll be able to play games (at least from the outset) through the free iCade app.

Of course, gag gifts that appear on ThinkGeek have a weird way of coming to fruition. (Remember the saga of the Tauntaun sleeping bag?) Well, when Fred Galpern, Ion’s gaming product manager, saw the imaginary iCade pop up on ThinkGeek’s site last year, he called up the site’s brass and proposed they work together to make the dream a reality. Eventually, Atari was brought on board as a partner in supplying games for the unit — at launch, only Asteroids will be available — although Ion says it will release a developers kit, so we’ll hopefully see a slew of iCade-compatible games by year’s end.

Oddly enough, even though the fake iCade retailed for $150 on ThinkGeek, the real iCade will undercut that by $50, despite knowing in advance that thousands of people would gladly pay such a price point. But $100 is all you’ll need to plunk down at ionaudio.com or thinkgeek.com (yes, the site will be selling an exclusive ICade that looks like the April Fools’ version) if you want to relive some ’80s gaming glory days on your iPad.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Well, here’s a bit of welcome news from Samsung’s press conference, though it’s got little to do with Samsung itself — Hulu Plus has finally been confirmed for the Android platform. There’s been some friction between Hulu and Google as of late, but it seems preferred partner Samsung is helping to work those differences out, as Hulu CEO Jason Kilar demoed the code-complete app running on this Galaxy S smartphone. He didn’t provide a release date, though. Drat.

Hulu Plus headed to Android, no promises about when originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The Lenovo C205 offers everything a family needs in a home computer: an AMD dualcore processor, plenty of memory, and up to 500GB of storage- plus a Web cam for video conferencing.

Originally posted at CES 2011

Continue reading JVC announces ACR-equipped TH-BC3 sound bar

JVC announces ACR-equipped TH-BC3 sound bar originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  JVC  | Email this | Comments