Hasta La Gadget!

HP’s Jon Rubenstein told us that his company wanted to veer in a new direction, and veer it surely did — the HP Veer 4G will arguably be the smallest fully-functional smartphone on the market when it goes on sale May 15th. In a nutshell, it’s a Palm Pixi Plus in the guise of a Pre, only in a delightfully downsized package with webOS 2.1 and thoroughly modern functionality. What does it feel like to Just Type on its tiny keyboard or throw app cards across its itsy-bitsy 2.6-inch screen? How is it as a pocketable HSPA+ hotspot, and will that extra G decimate its miniscule 910mAh battery? These are the questions that drove us when playing with the Veer 4G this week, and you’ll find the answers shortly after the break.

Continue reading HP Veer 4G review

HP Veer 4G review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 May 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LimeWire reaches $105 million settlement with record labels originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 May 2011 11:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our testing of the Droid Charge got off to a bit of a rough start thanks to Verizon’s wee tiny LTE outage that just so happened to hit at the same time as the phone. Thanks (at least in part) to that, the official launch of the device was delayed, and while we still don’t have confirmation of why or just how long the delay was supposed to be, we do have multiple tips from multiple lovely readers in multiple positions at Verizon telling us the phone will be properly hitting stores on the 14th. We’re working on official confirmation but, for now, it sure looks like tomorrow you’ll be able to mosey on over to your local VZW outlet and get yourself $299 worth of LTE and OLED.

Update: We just got official confirmation from Verizon that the phone will be available tomorrow in-store and online tonight! Details in the PR below.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Droid Charge to finally light up on Verizon Wireless tomorrow (update: official!)

Droid Charge to finally light up on Verizon Wireless tomorrow (update: official!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 May 2011 11:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sources tell Pocket-Lint that ViewSonic will launch its 7-inch ViewPad 7x tablet complete with Android Honeycomb on May 31 at the Computex computer show.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Does Dieter Rams T3 transistor radio from 1958 (left) look familiar?

Over at the Atlantic, ex-Wired.com science nerd Alexis Madrigal brings us a look at the gadgets which inspired the iPad, the touch-screen and that disappearing computer, the iPad. The selection is curated by Microsoft Research scientist Bill Buxton, and contains such gems as the Dieter Rams-designed T3 radio seen above, next to the eerily similar iPod.

While the iPod is clearly aesthetically inspired by Rams’ transistor radio, but other devices have been more subtly mined for their ideas. The Data Rover 840 form 1998, for example, may have a stylus but the row of icons along the bottom of the touch screen and its minimal amount of hardware buttons seem rather familiar.

My favorite, though, has to be the Psion Series 5, a true classic. I used to have one of these clamshell, handheld computers and happily typed whole articles on it. According to Alexis, “Buxton says he dreams about loading modern components onto the Psion chassis so that he could use the keyboard and form factor.” I couldn’t agree more.

The Crazy Old Gadgets That Presaged the iPod, iPhone and a Whole Lot More [The Atlantic]

The Buxton Collection [Microsoft Research]

See Also:

• Spotify Radio Puts Playlists On Physical Disks
• IPhone's Design Tribute to a 1977 Braun Calculator