Hasta La Gadget!

We think this is a veiled way of passing the buck to AT&T — but whatever it is, Sony Ericsson USA has extended an old, crusty, TimeScape-enabled olive branch to Xperia X10 owners in the States by attempting to explain what’s going on with the Eclair update ’round these parts. Basically, the company says that getting an update out in the US is way harder than it is elsewhere because of “the technical requirements that must be met” over which Sony Ericsson has “no control.” The blame is levied on an “especially rigorous” testing cycle that can (and presumably, often does) take several months, which is why they’ve thus far refused to offer guidance on when the update will be released. Honestly, is there any way we can trade in our warranty card to get on the fast track with this stuff? And more importantly, would us bleeding-edge types be willing to take that risk on a wide scale?

Sony Ericsson faults ‘especially rigorous’ firmware testing in US for X10’s Eclair update delay on AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 14:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Android landscape’s certainly getting crowded, isn’t it? We can still vividly remember the days when the T-Mobile G1 was the only game in town, and now here we are — just two years later — flush with options covering virtually every market segment from the ultra-high end to the ultra-low and everything in between. One niche market that’s usually underserved, though, is the beat-the-crap-out-of-your-phone market. You know who you are: you work hard, you play hard, or you’ve just got an incurable case of butterfingers — but whatever the case, you need a phone that you aren’t breaking, bricking, melting, freezing, or otherwise destroying every few weeks.

It’s not that rugged phones haven’t existed, of course. Far from it: Nextel and Motorola practically invented (and thrived off of) the concept, and options like AT&T’s Samsung Rugby and Verizon’s Casio G’zOne series have been available for some time. By and large, though, it’s been a field devoid of smartphones — and these days, that’s just not going to cut it. The kinds of people that need a phone that can take a few knocks don’t necessarily want to buy them at the expense of power or capability anymore. On that note, Motorola’s new Android-powered Defy for T-Mobile USA (and other carriers abroad) is one of the few to take a shot at elegantly combining environmental resistance with a no-compromise smartphone experience, featuring Blur atop Android 2.1 with a 5 megapixel autofocus cam, LED flash, 800MHz TI OMAP3610 core, and a 3.7-inch 854 x 480 display. In other words, on paper, it’s no slouch — but can it hang? Let’s find out.

Continue reading Motorola Defy review

Motorola Defy review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading NEC rolls out Android-based LifeTouch ‘cloud communicator’

NEC rolls out Android-based LifeTouch ‘cloud communicator’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Timeline (the condensed version): Google launches Android 2.1 on January 5th, Motorola promises to eventually offer 2.1 for all its Android handsets (including the heavily skinned CLIQ) on January 6th, Google’s Nexus One gets 2.1 on January 11th. We wait. Motorola CLIQ gets 2.1 today, a mere 11 months later. Sure, maybe we were young and naive, but who could’ve known then that this update would be so long coming? Nobody really knows the solution to this problem in a general sense, especially since vanilla Android seems to be off the table for the majority of phones. What could compel a handset manufacturer and a carrier to work up timely software updates on heftily-skinned handsets past their shelf life, potentially competing with their own newer handsets in the process? Maybe paying for updates? Real Genuine Tears of Desperation? You tell us. Anyway, congrats to the saintly CLIQ owners out there who have waited patiently for 2.1, and a grumble grumble thanks to Motorola for keeping its promise.

Motorola CLIQ gets Android 2.1 at long last originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hard to say if this is the direct (or indirect) replacement to the Creative X-Fi2 we toyed with 13 months ago, but the new Zen Touch 2 has snuck out behind the cover of two ZiiO touch tablets. This here PMP sports a 3.2-inch touchscreen, Android 2.1 underneath, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, an accelerometer, inbuilt speaker, two megapixel camera, microSD card slot, GPS, digital compass, FM radio tuner and a run-of-the-mill plastic enclosure. That last bit is according to Pocket-lint‘s brief hands-on with the device, noting that the touch panel is of the resistive variety and the user interface was jumpy and problematic to say the least. It’ll be landing soon in 8GB and 16GB sizes for S$279 ($216 in Greenbacks) and up, but we get the impression that price and availability may not matter much in the grand scheme of things.

Creative gets official with Android-based Zen Touch 2 PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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