Hasta La Gadget!

ViewSonic’s taking tablets to great new lows here at CES, calling its new 4.1-inch ViewPad 4 a “tablet device with smartphone functionality.” Whatever the description, though, this is a pretty handsome, angular Froyo handset with an 800 x 480 resolution, 5 megapixel camera that can record 1080p 720p video, a front-facing imager, 2GB of ROM, and either 512MB or 1GB of RAM. The spec sheet we found online says the former, but the chap at ViewSonic’s stand today told us the latter. Either way, we’re really liking the smoothness of the Android UI on this tabletphone, it was very pleasantly responsive. The most shocking thing about the ViewPad 4, however, might be its launch date, which we were told will be somewhere around mid-June. Froyo in mid-June … really? Get your video hands-on fix after the break.

Update: A second pass through the ViewSonic stand informed us that actually the ViewPad 4 is only capable of 720p video recording. Bogus, man.

Continue reading ViewSonic ViewPad 4 hands-on (video)

ViewSonic ViewPad 4 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Believe it or not, the tablet world hasn’t all turned into a Honeycomb / Tegra 2 monopoly. Some manufacturers, like industry newbie eFun here, are sticking with ye olde Froyo and looking to conquer a slice of the thrifty consumer market. The Nextbook Next4 is a 10-inch panel aping the iPad in offering a 1024 x 768 resolution and what will be a brushed aluminum back (ours was made out of plastic, but it was just a display prototype). Unfortunately, that’s pretty much where the similarities end, as this device’s software really wasn’t up to scratch. It’s almost stock Android 2.2, by the looks of it, but eFun opted to take the familiar Android soft keys into software, leaving the only capacitive touch for the panel. The biggest problem for us, aside from some instabilities and a random reboot, was lag when navigating through menus and an atypically long load time to get Angry Birds running. Performance might be an issue, in spite of the 1GHz Cortex A8 processor inside, but price likely won’t be. The Next4 is launching in the first quarter of the year with a price somewhere around $350.

Its 7-inch sibling, the Nextbook Next6, is also joining it in Q1 and also eschews Android keys for a software implementation. Its designed primarily for reading ebooks and has a pair of physical keys on the side for flipping pages, which worked well. It had similar issues, however, to its bigger brother, but maybe its target audience will be more forgiving of its lack of immediate responsiveness than we are. It’ll be a Home Shopping Network exclusive for a week when it launches, with an MSRP of $300 that will likely be discounted to $250. Hit up the gallery for the hands-on action!

eFun Nextbook Next4 and Next6 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though it’s just being called the “Samsung 4G LTE Smartphone” at this point, rest assured: the Android-powered device is very much real and very much destined for Verizon’s airwaves. Though the inclusion of LTE is obviously a high point, the phone’s claim to fame might be that it’ll be among the first devices in the world to feature one of Sammy’s newfangled Super AMOLED Plus displays (4.3 inches, in this case) that offers even better contrast and outdoor viewability than the original Super AMOLED did. You’ve got TouchWiz-skinned Android 2.2, an 8 megapixel camera with flash paired to a 1.3 megapixel front-facing unit for video calling, and a 1GHz processor that seems to mirror what’s already being offered on most of the Galaxy S series today — no dual-core madness here.

We had a few fleeting moments to touch (but not photograph) the phone recently, and the screen is definitely a sight to behold — we’re not sure how Samsung managed to make a more contrasty display than Super AMOLED, but it did. We’ll admit, we didn’t love the tapered shape — we thought it looked a little strange sitting on a table, though some might like it and it’s certainly not a big deal either way. We also weren’t huge fans of the big physical buttons below the display, a surprising counterpoint to the recent trend toward capacitive buttons on high-end Android devices. It’s a heavy phone, though probably not heavy enough to bother folks who are in the market for a 4.3-inch display anyway — and hey, we won’t know for sure how it stacks up until we pit it head-to-head in a brutal deathmatch with Verizon’s other version-one LTE phones like the Droid Bionic. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Samsung sends Verizon an unnamed Android smartphone with LTE, Super AMOLED Plus display

Samsung sends Verizon an unnamed Android smartphone with LTE, Super AMOLED Plus display originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell’s Looking Glass tablet has just received its official papers, being dubbed the Streak 7 and packed off to T-Mobile HSPA+ network. Alas, unlike its fellow CES debutants from the likes of Motorola and LG, this slate only has Android 2.2 on board, no Honeycomb, but you do get a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, a Gorilla Glass-protected screen, 16GB of internal memory, and of course the greatness and glory of that 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor. T-Mobile retail stores and Dell’s direct online outlet should have the Streak 7 “in the coming weeks.” Full PR and an introductory video follow after the break.

Continue reading Dell Streak 7 official on T-Mobile’s 4G network, bringing dual-core Tegra 2 and Froyo

Dell Streak 7 official on T-Mobile’s 4G network, bringing dual-core Tegra 2 and Froyo originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Motorola Atrix 4G, HD multimedia dock, and laptop dock hands-on

Motorola Atrix 4G, HD multimedia dock, and laptop dock hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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