Hasta La Gadget!

If we know you at all (and we think we know you pretty well) you’ll probably be amused and titillated to learn that Vodafone has announced that its first Vodafone-branded Android phone will be available this May. The Vodafone 845 — which we first saw in an FCC filing a couple weeks ago — certainly is, in the UK idiom, a “budget blower.” Featuring Android 2.1, a 2.8-inch (240 x 320) touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera, 128MB RAM, and 512MB storage, there is nothing too terribly wild here, but you know what? Sometimes a company just needs to hit a comfortable, middle-of-the-road benchmark. The kids at the UK mobile website Fone Home have a handsome gallery for you to check out, so do hit that via to get rolling… but not before you peep the video after the break.

Update: OK, maybe the title of this post was a little misleading. We meant to say that this is the first Vodafone-branded Android handset — as you’re probably well aware, this carrier is certainly no stranger to the beloved open source OS.

Continue reading Vodafone launches its first, underwhelming Android handset (video)

Vodafone launches its first, underwhelming Android handset (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some alleged spy shots of a brand-new Android tablet materialized in our inbox this afternoon, and after sending a few e-mails and making a quick phone call, we can confirm they’re 100 percent legit: boutique PC retailer Velocity Micro‘s getting in the tablet game something fierce, with a whole new lineup of touchscreen devices it’s dubbed “Cruz.” Designed to compete with both e-readers and tablets, Cruz will appear in both 4 x 3 and 16 x 9 configurations over the coming months, with the high-end devices sporting 7-inch capacitive multitouch screens, 800MHz processors and Android 2.1 (complete with Flash 10.1) right out of the box. Best of all, Velocity Micro tells us they’ll be relatively affordable — all will arrive under the $300 line. A company rep couldn’t tell us whether Android Market would be included or when exactly the tablets are due, but he hazarded a guess of “late summer.” Hit up our gallery to see the first prototype.

[Thanks, Kendall]

Velocity Micro’s Cruz Tablet has Android 2.1 with full Flash support originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re on Telus and you’ve been longingly waiting for your turn to jump onto the Android 2.1 bandwagon, that time is now. However, you’re going to have to take a few steps to get aboard, as this update is not coming OTA. According to MobileSyrup, where you can find the full update instructions, you’ll need to hit Motorola’s site directly, accept an agreement, then download a software updater to your PC. After that you’ll get a taste of multitouch in Maps, a new Facebook widget to clutter your desktop, and the option to enable up to nine homescreens — something you can gloat about to your Droid-owning neighbors to the south. We’re still making do with just 3.

[Thanks, Sean]

Telus Milestone users finally get a taste of Android 2.1’s custard filling originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Compared to the other crazy handsets Dell leaked today, the Aero is definitely the runt of the litter. But with a leaked Q2 AT&T release date, the Aero will be first on our doorstep. What other juicy morsels have we gathered? On the hardware side, it’s sadly a slow 624MHz Marvell processor that drives that 3.5-inch capacitive multitouch screen, but hey, like the Chinese model, it’s planned to ship with a capacitive stylus for handwriting recognition.

More interesting is software. Like Motorola’s CLIQ, Aero comes with QuickOffice right out of the box, and supports Microsoft ActiveSync and Exchange to ostensibly keep in touch with your business. For the social crowd, there’s on-device photo editing and “aggregated notifications” for the bevy of social networks Dell’s agreed to support. While you probably knew the device would have a WebKit browser with Flash Lite, leaks reveal it will have a robust media player as well — robust enough to have some sort of music streaming and download ability (PlayReady, anyone?) protected by Windows Media DRM. Though it’s probably still Android 1.5 onboard, docs show Dell plans a “refresh” to Android 2.1 sometime between Q3 and Q4, but it’s hard to say whether the Aero will get an OTA update, or whether only new Aeros will ship with Eclair. That said, given the relative insignificance of this handset compared to its new big brothers, we’re more than willing to wait and find out.

Dell Aero details confirmed with new leak: 624MHz processor, handwriting support, DRM originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d already heard that Dell was working on larger tablets, and tonight’s huge leak brought us tons of info on the Looking Glass, a seven-inch big brother to the Streak 5 that’s due out in November. For starters, it’s running Android 2.1 on a Tegra 2 processor, with an optional TV tuner module so you can watch ATSC or DVB-T programming on the seven-inch 800×480 display — the same resolution as the Streak, which is sort of weak. In addition, the render on the slide shows an AT&T U-verse browser, though, which is interesting — too bad there’s no more info about it. RAM is pegged at 4GB, with another 4GB of flash for storage and an SDHC slot for up to 32GB of expansion, and there’s a 1.3 megapixel camera. Yep, it’s pretty much just a bigger Streak with a different, potentially awesomer processor — imagine how slick you’ll look with this bad boy held to your face on a call.

Dell Looking Glass tablet leaks: Tegra 2 coming your way in November originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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