Hasta La Gadget!

In the seemingly unending quest to remain connected while traveling abroad, we recently decided to try yet another option when departing the US for a lengthy amount of time: iPhoneTrip. In a way, it sounds like the perfect solution. A single rental SIM, mailed to your address anywhere in the world, that you don’t even have to return when you’re done. There are claims of supporting “200+ countries,” and if you don’t have a smartphone or mobile hotspot at the ready, the company will rent you one of those, too. Of course, we’ve long since learned to take grandiose claims with an adequate amount of salt. Care to see how iPhoneTrip’s rental SIM service stacks up against similar alternatives from Tep Wireless and XCom Global? Read on.

Continue reading iPhoneTrip SIM rental review: the best way to keep your smartphone connected while abroad

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

iPhoneTrip SIM rental review: the best way to keep your smartphone connected while abroad originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With all the iPhone 5 hoopla lately, you might not have heard the news—Israel and Iran are fixing for a fight that could wipe both countries off the map. Twenty-six Western allies have already dispatched a flotilla of warships to the region to guard the Strait of Hormuz—among them is the brand new HMS Diamond. This floating missile shield is the Royal Navy’s most capable destroyer ever. More »

Before the hot-selling iPhone 5 launched into existence, most of the surprise had already been ruined. We saw parts, heard about launch dates, and even saw full-fledged photos of the device. So if that disappointed you as much as it did me, you might want to look away.

These leaked pictures certainly appear to be of a legitimate iPad mini. The design matches up well with what we’ve heard (and seen) so far — thinner bezels along the side, aluminum back plate, and some strange hole in the top center of the tablet’s backside.

You’ll notice an unfamiliar weather icon on the homescreen, which also appears on the images in this article, out of France. It’s a Chinese Weather app, which leads us to believe that this may indeed be a legitimate leak out of a Chinese factory.

A quick search for iPad mini cases on Alibaba brings up dozens of cases matching this design, including the mysterious hole in the back.

Oddly, there is no Clock app as we’ve seen on iOS 6. Google Maps and YouTube apps also seem to be on the homescreen of the tablet. Perhaps the owners got the device to run iOS 5, and have installed some third-party or prototype Weather app. Or, more likely, the screen isn’t live yet, and that’s just a mockup display.

You’ll also notice what appears to be a Lightning dock on the bottom, alongside dual speakers.

If real, the iPad mini must be right around the corner. We’ve posited, along with known Apple psychics like John Gruber and Jim Dalrymple, that Apple wouldn’t crowd the iPhone 5 and iPad mini into the same launch event. They deserve their own moments in the sun.

Considering that the company announced a bevy of music products at the iPhone 5 event (new iPods and a revamped iTunes), the usual October music event will be quite boring without a new product.

Click to view slideshow.

Guitarists and Bassists have many tools at their disposal for practicing fresh news licks without disturbing others around them. One of our favorites is Vox’s AmPlug — a guitar amp-modeling dongle that plugs into your instrument’s 1/4-inch jack, allowing you to connect headphones and an MP3 player to practice privately. Building on the idea, Vox worked with Audio-Technica to simply embed the AmPlug in a new line of headphones, dubbing them Amphones. The company quietly put the cans up on its site recently, and it’s now officially ready to shout out loud about them.

Guitarists can choose from AC-30 (British crunch), Lead (hi-gain) and Twin (clean) variants, and bassists can snag the Bass version, which is based on Vox’s AC100. Just like the AmPlug, each Amphone features volume dials — sadly, these don’t go to 11 — for setting gain, volume and tone, along with a fourth for a built-in effect (compression for the Bass and reverb with the AC30, for example). A duo of triple AAs power the cans and, as you’d expect, the ‘phones have a 3.5mm jack for hooking in external sources as well as a 1/4 adapter to plug into your axe. These Vox-styled units will be available in the US sometime in October for $100 a pop (double the cost of an AmPlug). Hungering for more already? We were able to give a pre-production version of the AC30 model a brief run, and you’ll find our initial impressions after the break.

Continue reading Vox jams guitar amps into Audio-Technica headphones, dubs them Amphones (ears-on)

Filed under: Misc, Portable Audio/Video, Wearables

Vox jams guitar amps into Audio-Technica headphones, dubs them Amphones (ears-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Who needs a marketing department when you have a personal Sina Weibo account? So reasoned ZTE’s marketing strategy manager, Dennis Lui, as he posted the above photo of three ZTE Windows Phones to the internet. The right-hand device is just a regular ZTE Tania and, although it looks like it’s running Windows Phone 8, the screen is actually a dead ringer for a certain “WP8 simulator” app available for WP7 phones. The remaining two devices are obscured by a generous helping of blur, but the handset on the left could well be running legit WP8, as evidenced by the shrunken live tiles, hinting that ZTE may be among the first wave of manufacturers diving into the new OS. To further whet our budget hardware appetites, Lui also posted a photo of a Windows 8 or Windows RT tablet (shown after the break), which suggests that ZTE is getting into that game too.

Continue reading ZTE marketing guy goes crazy with unknown WP8 handset and Gaussian blur

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

ZTE marketing guy goes crazy with unknown WP8 handset and Gaussian blur originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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