Hasta La Gadget!

Novatel? Yes. Sierra Wireless? Sure. Pantech? Definitely — but one company we didn’t really expect to be launching a pocketable mobile hotspot on an American carrier was Samsung. Sure enough, Sammy is hooking up with Verizon to rock the carrier’s very first mobile hotspot product to be announced with LTE compatibility, a crucial feature that should give the Sprint Overdrives and 3G / 4G MiFis of the world a run for their collective money. Though it lacks a creative name, the so-called 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot is precisely as described with a dash of CDMA / EV-DO compatibility thrown in for those rare occasions when you stray outside your local LTE footprint. We don’t have a price or date yet, but there’s not a lot of rocket science here compared to… say, the Inspiration, so hopefully it won’t be long.

Though we didn’t have a chance to put it through a live test, we’ve had our hands on this little device already and we can say it’s basically a dead ringer for the CDMA version of the first-generation Novatel MiFi as sold on Verizon, Sprint, and others. The only change, really, is that it feels a bit thicker, a bit more “solid,” and a bit heavier, but not nearly enough to make a practical difference — you’ll still gladly throw this thing in your pocket when you need a cloud of steamy hot WiFi in your vicinity. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Samsung bringing 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot to Verizon

Samsung bringing 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot to Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Would you look at that. Verizon’s ongoing press conference has been accompanied by the appearance of two 4.3-inch LTE handsets coming to the network. Both HTC’s Thunderbolt and LG’s Revolution were pretty well known in advance, but hey, now we have big luscious high-res pictures to gawk at. The Revolution will come with Android 2.2 preloaded while the Thunderbolt has Skype video calling integrated right into HTC Sense. The latter device also boasts a Super LCD display, 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording, DLNA, Dolby Surround Sound, and the honor of being a Verizon exclusive in the US. Now that the devices have been made official, we also know that the Revolution can stream, play and record HD video, perform video chat with a front-facing camera, and share its 4G connection with up to eight devices through its built-in hotspot functionality. Jump past the break for the full announcement.

Update: Hop on past the break for the Thunderbolt specs, courtesy of our friend Peyton (and HTC).

Continue reading HTC Thunderbolt and LG Revolution official on Verizon (update)

HTC Thunderbolt and LG Revolution official on Verizon (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Samsung Suede will be the first phone to include Cricket’s Muve Music service. Here’s a first look from the CES show floor.

Originally posted at CES 2011

Portable Bump speaker wirelessly streams your music from iTunes or plays songs downloaded onto an SD card.

Originally posted at CES 2011