Sprint’s Motorola Admiral quietly displayed on YouTube as America watches dancing cats

It may not have quite as many views as Admiral Ackbar, but a chieftan of Sprint’s CDMA-based Direct Connect service was officially outed by the carrier via YouTube earlier. Our device in question, the Motorola Admiral, has now been given a speedy lookover despite the fact that the company hasn’t even seen fit to acknowledge its existence otherwise. ‘Course, we don’t imagine this was accidental in the slightest — the video of the rugged Android device has been up for several hours without getting pulled — but it’s still a curious way to introduce one of the first phones featuring a brand new service. Regardless, we now have the clearest shots of the portrait QWERTY smartphone that we’ve seen yet; the two-and-a-half minute teaser didn’t list off a lot of specs, but it did confirm the handset’s 3.1-inch display and five megapixel camera with LED flash. That should count for something, right? Still, it likely won’t be long before we get a real announcement with the full rundown, so just keep yourself entertained by watching the “related videos” section in the meantime. Check out the vid after the break.

Continue reading Sprint’s Motorola Admiral quietly displayed on YouTube as America watches dancing cats

Sprint’s Motorola Admiral quietly displayed on YouTube as America watches dancing cats originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cricket takes a great leap forward, expands footprint with a little help from retail friends

After inking a wholesale spectrum agreement with Sprint last year, Leap’s going for broke and rolling its “value-driven” Cricket service out nationwide on September 25th. The expansion includes a sprinkling of Walmart stores, Dollar General and even cable-shopping channel HSN, but the majority of its new reach will come from a partnership with Best Buy. In addition to offering monthly plans for dumb and smartphones alike, the operator’s also serving up specific Muve Music service packages to play nice with three upcoming handsets. Along with the Samsung Vitality and ZTE Chorus (both to be available before the holidays), Cricket’s introducing its first ZTE smartphone — the Score. Don’t go looking for high-end specs here, as the 3.5-inch Android device runs Gingerbread atop a 600MHz processor and includes a 3.2 megapixel camera. Feature phone users will also get a couple of new options to choose, with the Huawei Pillar and Samsung Chrono offered on the provider’s PAYGo service. If you’re in the mood to dig through PR spiel, skip past the break for a trio of pressers.

Continue reading Cricket takes a great leap forward, expands footprint with a little help from retail friends

Cricket takes a great leap forward, expands footprint with a little help from retail friends originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Optimus Hub (aka Univa / Optimus Two) earns its stripes at the FCC

Okay, we’ll totally admit that we’ve got something of a phone crush on LG’s successor to the Optimus One lineup. Sure, it hasn’t debuted in the States, and its specs already look a bit tired, but there’s tons of goodwill attached to this family of devices. Should LG properly execute, the handset promises to be an iterative improvement for all smartphone buyers that need to save some coin. Now this sexy creation is making its way though the FCC, and while it’s difficult to tell whether this is an international model or is bound for our domestic shores, it’s easy to realize that we’re one step closer to its much anticipated release. After a bit of digging, we can tell you the phone supports the 1900 and 850MHz bands, which is common to networks such as AT&T, Bell, Telus and Rogers. With all the names being tossed around, it’ll be interesting to see how the individual carriers choose to brand these devices, but it seems that we won’t have to wait much longer for those details.

LG Optimus Hub (aka Univa / Optimus Two) earns its stripes at the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung SHV-E120L comes out of the development dark, is the Xtina to LG’s Britney

Brothers from another mobile mother, or just a case of copycat syndrome? We’ll let you be the judge, but from the looks of this latest leak, Samsung’s SHV-E120L could be sharing some of the LG LU6200’s special spec sauce. Outed over on Cetizen and iNews24, the full breakdown of the device’s innards point to a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 HD display, 2 megapixel front-facing / 8 megapixel rear camera, 1GB RAM, 16GB of onboard storage, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC. We’ve seen conflicting reports as to the exact version of Gingerbread that’ll ship on the phone, with Android 2.3.5 in the running. As for the handset’s radios, its purported MDM9600 Gobi chipset indicates tri-mode LTE, HSPA and CDMA compatibility. Sammy’s super-sized smartphone could hit South Korea later this month, or in early October — if the passable English in that Google translation can be believed.

Samsung SHV-E120L comes out of the development dark, is the Xtina to LG’s Britney originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Enlighten to achieve retail zen September 22nd on Verizon

There are a number of ways to achieve inner-peace, like years of meditation, for example — or you could just pick up an $80 Android handset. LG finally made official the release of its Enlighten handset today. The Gingerbread phone features a 3.2-inch display, a QWERTY slide out keyboard, a 3.2 megapixel camera and an 800MHz processor. The largely unexceptional bit of hardware will be hitting Verizon’s site on September 22nd, followed by a September 29th debut in Verizon retail stores. It’ll run you $79.99 with a two-year contract after a $50 mail in rebate. Enlighten yourself with the press release after the break.

Continue reading LG Enlighten to achieve retail zen September 22nd on Verizon

LG Enlighten to achieve retail zen September 22nd on Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Rhyme with Sense 3.5 hands-on (video)

We’re here at HTC’s swank New York City press event where the mood lighting and floral centerpieces are as unabashedly girly as the Rhyme, its newest handset for lady folk. We just spent a few minutes wrapping our hands around the device, exploring the ports (not that there are many) and poking around the latest version of Sense (v3.5). Do you like purple? Are you a person of style? Sure you are. So what are you waiting for? Meet us after the break where we’ll run down our first impressions and see what this thing has to offer beside that cute design.

Continue reading HTC Rhyme with Sense 3.5 hands-on (video)

HTC Rhyme with Sense 3.5 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Rhyme official: 3G, 3.7-inch display, single-core CPU, headed to Verizon for $199 on contract

Well, well. Looks like those leaked press shots (and hands-on photos and video walk-through) were on the money. HTC just officially announced the Rhyme — that womanly handset otherwise known as the Bliss. As it happens, HTC isn’t explicitly marketing this as a lady phone, though it bears all the markers of a device pandering toward those of us with XX chromosomes. Which is to say, it’s petite and purple with middling specs. What you’re looking at is a handset with a 3.7-inch WVGA display, a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm CPU, 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage space, a non-removable battery, microSD expansion slot, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS radios and dual 5MP / VGA cameras. The phone runs Android 2.3 with “next-generation” Sense (that would be version 3.5) layered on top.

And, as rumored, you can pair it with an optional “Charm Indicator,” a bubble that glows purple when the phone is ringing so that you’ll never again miss a call because your phone is buried beneath nail files and fifty tubes of lipstick. Other accessories include a wireless dashboard speaker for the car, a dock and a workout armband. As that tell-tale FCC report revealed, the purple version you see up there will land on Verizon as a 3G device, with a silver version arriving in Asia and Europe next month. HTC has yet to confirm pricing or availability. If leaks are to be believed, though, those of you with small hands and deep murses should be able to pre-order yours any day now.

Update: We’re told that it’ll sell for the typical $199 on a two-year contract (which includes all accessories), with pre-orders starting on the the 22nd and availability pegged for September 29th. A bit steep given the specifications, but hey — you’ll pay a premium for style, right? Right?

Update 2: As for global aspirations, we heard from an HTC representative that it’ll soon be available on an unspecified amount of European carriers, where it’ll be hawked as the “Hourglass,” tinged in a “sand-like color.” All other specifications and accessories will remain the same, though.

Update 3: Check out our hands-on (with video!) right here.

Gallery: HTC Rhyme

Continue reading HTC Rhyme official: 3G, 3.7-inch display, single-core CPU, headed to Verizon for $199 on contract

HTC Rhyme official: 3G, 3.7-inch display, single-core CPU, headed to Verizon for $199 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Explorer, formerly HTC Pico, is back in black

Anyone turned off by the HTC Pico’s blueish guise may be happy to see the phone’s dark and serious makeover in these press shots. Now going under the name of the HTC Explorer, the render also gives us our first look at the new HTC Sense Zero skin. Alongside a refreshed bar at the bottom, linking you to the app list and phone, it looks to be a visually lighter skin, hopefully allowing the Explorer’s rumoured 600MHz processor to juggle both HTC’s home-made interface and Gingerbread with ease. The petite Explorer lacks the 850 / 1900 WCDMA bands necessary for a US launch, so we doubt we’ll see it at HTC’s big event later today in New York, though we are expecting to get our hands on at least some of those codenamed phones currently doing the spy shot rounds.

HTC Explorer, formerly HTC Pico, is back in black originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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VMK Way-C tablet shows off its full figure, on sale for $300 in select countries this October

We got a look at the back of the African-designed VMK tablet awhile ago, and today we got a bit more info about its pending release. The slate, now named the Way-C, is set to go on sale in October — a month later than initially expected — for $300, and we finally got a look at the front side of the thing. If you like what you see, hopefully you’re reading this in Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Gabon, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal or Belgium, ’cause those are the only places you can pick one up. If not, well, the plethora of pics in the gallery below will have to suffice.

VMK Way-C tablet shows off its full figure, on sale for $300 in select countries this October originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Game on: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play 4G ready at AT&T for $50

Just over four months after the unique device hit Verizon stores, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play 4G has now made it past AT&T’s front door and onto shelves nationwide. The unique factor on this particular version of the “PlayStation Phone” is the inclusion of 14.4Mbps HSPA+ — with enhanced backhaul, naturally — and will be the first PlayStation-Certified smartphone on AT&T’s network. At $50, the pricing is certainly competitive since it ships with Android 2.3.3, a 1GHz single-core CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, 4-inch 854 x 480 display, and seven pre-loaded games. At a full $150 less than Big Red’s launch price, the carrier may move a few units. If you’re one of those that could be persuaded, head to the source link and get your shopping on.

Game on: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play 4G ready at AT&T for $50 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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