Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve long covered ZTE products at Engadget, but hardly ever do we see the company’s phones touch down on a US carrier. Well, that’s all going to change very soon. While the Chinese company isn’t sharing exact carrier partnerships, it did reveal that its new Style S and LTE tablet will be coming stateside in the second half of 2011. The first of those two is that 4.3-inch Android 2.3 handset up there. Unfortunately, the Style on display at ZTE’s booth was just a mockup, but we’re certainly digging the large screen and soft back of the device. According to the placard, it will have dual cameras (a .3 megapixel shooter on the front and a 5 megapixel cam around back) and a 1350mAH battery. That aforementioned LTE tablet was also on display on the showfloor, albeit behind glass. The Honeycomb slab, which we hear will be aggressively marketed, has a 1280×800-resolution 10-inch display, two cameras, a 6800mAH battery, and an 1.2GHz processor. Unfortunately, that’s all we’ve got for now, but check out the gallery below and expect to hear more during the second half of the year.

ZTE’s Style S and LTE tablet coming to the US during the second half of the year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Ericsson‘s next great thing, the Xperia Play, has just appeared on Vodafone UK’s pages as its newest pre-order treat. Scheduled for a March 31st launch with a price tag of £free if you’re willing to pony up £35 or more a month on a two-year contract. Vodafone‘s Xperia Play will ship with six preloaded games including Crash Bandicoot, Fifa 10, Star Battalion, Tetris, Sims 3, and Bruce Lee on the included 8GB memory card — and includes some unnamed “desk stand” if pre-ordered before April 1st. We’re kinda curious if any of you out there are going to jump on this newest Android 2.3 toy, so feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.

[Thanks, lewis]

Vodafone UK posts pre-order page for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For a while, it seemed like the 850 / 1900MHz 3G version of the Nexus S that’d work on AT&T, Bell, Telus, and Rogers would be the next one to show up, but Sprint ended up emerging as the frontrunner more recently — and now it’s official. The Nexus S 4G stays true to the T-Mobile-flavored original, offering an unfettered stock Gingerbread experience; it’s fractions of a millimeter thicker and a couple grams heavier, but the real change is inside where you’ll find both CDMA / EV-DO and WiMAX radios — hence the “4G” in the name. There’ll be a menu option for turning WiMAX on and off — good for those times when you value battery life over breakneck browsing speeds — and considering Sammy’s prior experience rolling the Epic 4G for Sprint, we’re cautiously optimistic that the Nexus S hardware will make the transition from GSM with minimum pain. The new version will be available “this spring” for $199.99; follow the break for Samsung’s full press release.

Continue reading Google Nexus S 4G with WiMAX announced for Sprint: coming this spring for $200

Google Nexus S 4G with WiMAX announced for Sprint: coming this spring for $200 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No, not the Galaxy Mini, that low-end Android sprout — this looks like Samsung’s smaller alternative to the upcoming Galaxy S II superphone. We just got handed UK carrier Three’s entire spring-summer lineup, and the Android 2.3 handset certainly stands out, pretending to be miniature in spite of a 3.7-inch screen (think Droid), a 1.4GHz processor (think Pre 3) and 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. But that’s the tip of the iceberg compared to what’s in store for Three — it looks like the Nokia X7 is alive, well, and tracking for a June release (not to mention the LG Optimus 3D), and tablets will drop too, with May bringing the HTC Flyer and the WiFi-only BlackBerry PlayBook launching in June. See specs and slated launch windows in our gallery below, and join us in hoping these documents portend a rapid US release.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Samsung Galaxy S II Mini leaks out for Three, plus Nokia X7, Flyer and PlayBook release dates in UK originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, Adobe Flash 10.2 will hit the Android Market for devices running Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb, and by now you’re probably familiar with what it brings — increased performance for dual-core smartphones running Android 2.2 and Android 2.3, and the promise of seriously sped-up Flash content and better battery life for Android 3.0 tablets (not to mention Flash, period). Well, we’ve already spent a full day with the latest build of Flash 10.2 for Android and quizzed the company thoroughly about the release, and there are a couple surprises in store.

First off, you don’t absolutely need a dual-core phone to take advantage of Flash 10.2 — Adobe VP Danny Winokur told us, and we confirmed in testing, that there are slight performance improvements on earlier devices too. With our trusty Droid 2’s 1Ghz OMAP3 chip, we saw a slight but noticeable boost in framerate when playing a YouTube trailer at 480p, which admittedly only took took that particular video from “unwatchable” to merely “fairly jerky.” With the Tegra 2-toting Motorola Xoom, however, 480p videos ran perfectly smooth, even as the tablet had trouble rendering 720p content as anything but a series of images. However, Adobe says even that will change soon, as this beta release doesn’t take advantage of full hardware acceleration — it’s actually turned off right now. Though the Tegra 2 is natively decoding video, Adobe told us that hardware rendering and compositing will be added in a subsequent release, and when they are it “will bring 720p playback to a really smooth, enjoyable level.” We also noticed that phone temperatures seemed slightly cooler with Flash 10.2, which suggests better battery life. The other work-in-progress is Flash integration into Google’s Honeycomb browser, which presently has trouble detecting finger taps when Flash isn’t played full screen, but which will — Adobe hopes — play exactly the same inside and outside the browser when work on Flash 10.2 is complete. Sounds promising, no? Then why not download it yourself this evening and give it a go?

Flash 10.2 hits Android today, Adobe hopes for viewable 720p playback in a matter of weeks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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