Best Buy puts your music in the cloud, goes where others have gone before

Google, Amazon, and Apple have been hogging the headlines when it comes to storing your tunes in the internet ether. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for another musically inclined cloud contender — or at least, that’s how Best Buy sees things. The big blue box has rolled out its aptly (if uncreatively) named Music Cloud service that lets you upload your audio to its servers and stream it wherever you go. You can also save songs locally, plus there are apps for Androids, Blackberrys, and iPhones to manage and play your music. There are two flavors of Music Cloud, Lite and Premium. The former is free, while the latter costs $3.99 a month, though Best Buy hasn’t said what the difference is (other than price) between the two. The catch? It’s currently only capable of grabbing songs from iTunes, so no uploading from file folders. Let’s hope that’s only a temporary problem.

Best Buy puts your music in the cloud, goes where others have gone before originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jun 2011 01:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP TouchPad goes up for pre-order starting at $500, will be available July 1

It’s true, the TouchPad, HP’s inaugural webOS tablet, won’t go on sale in the states until July 1, but that doesn’t mean you can’t claim yours pronto. She’s up for pre-order at a long list of retailers that includes Amazon, NewEgg, Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Radio Shack, J&R, Office Max, Office Depot, Costco, Sam’s Club, PC Richard & Son, Micro Center, and even Nebraska Furniture Mart. You’ll see it listed on HP’s site, too, but the company’s only accepting orders for businesses at the moment. As expected, the tab comes in two flavors: a 16GB version for $499.99 and a 32GB model that’ll set you back $599.99. Both of ’em pack a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, stereo speakers, Touch-to-Share, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and, of course, a gussied-up version of webOS optimized for that 9.7-inch display. Intrigued? Hit the exhaustive list of source links below to scoop one up for yourself.

[Thanks, Casey]

HP TouchPad goes up for pre-order starting at $500, will be available July 1 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vizio tablet fits Walmart into its hectic schedule, shipping in just six weeks

Looks like Blake Griffin will have to find some other unreleased gadget to wave in front of our noses, because his beloved Vizio tablet will soon be available to all the little people who shop at Walmart. An internal schedule just faxed itself to our tin foil caps declaring that the Android 8-incher will start shipping in “week 26”, which is Walmartish for six weeks from now. That might seem a long wait considering Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 is already giving us doe-eyes from the shelves at Best Buy, but the Vizio hits a friendlier price bracket (recently leaked at $349) and has its own set of tricks. The SRS speakers and universal remote function impressed us back in January, and there’s also the Via Plus ecosystem that should integrate the tablet with Vizio TV apps and the upcoming Vizio Phone. Of course, Vizio is more than welcome to come over and pimp the rest of our home entertainment system like it did for Blake.

[Thanks, FiZiX]

Vizio tablet fits Walmart into its hectic schedule, shipping in just six weeks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Series 5 Chromebook now shipping in Arctic White — Titan Silver edition still to come

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook now shipping in Arctic White -- Titan Silver edition still to come

We already knew it was coming — Samsung hasn’t been particularly shy about its teasing — but the big day has finally arrived, and the Series 5 Chromebook is now officially shipping to those eagerly awaiting the Google-powered laptop. If you weren’t among the high-end coupon clippers who snatched one up during the surprise sale at Gilt a couple of weeks ago, you can now pick up a Chromebook of your own. At least for now, however, it looks like you’ll have to settle for a white exterior — the “Titan Silver” (also known as black) edition is still in pre-order mode at both Best Buy and Amazon.

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook now shipping in Arctic White — Titan Silver edition still to come originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy adds $50 dock to its collection of HTC Flyer accessories

Surely by now you’ve recouped that $80 you begrudgingly forked over for your Flyer stylus, right? Good. Because the parade of accessories for the 7-inch slate continues. Now, Best Buy’s selling a matching white micro-USB dock for $50. It’s perfect for transforming the slate into the aluminum-clad bedside alarm of your dreams, but you can also connect your own MHL adapter to the rear micro-USB port, allowing you to output video to an HDTV. Looks like more than a few folks are sweet on the idea of porting HTC Watch to a bigger screen — the dock’s back-ordered with a one- to two-week delay. But is it worth the fifty bucks? We’ll leave that to you and your wallet.

Best Buy adds $50 dock to its collection of HTC Flyer accessories originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon vs. Best Buy Trade In Shoot Out

You read Gizmodo. You have lots of old electronics and games and bygone gee-gaws. You should sell them. But to whom? We ran a test of Amazon and Best Buy’s gear trade-in stores to find out. More »

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on sale at NYC Best Buy today, pre-orders now open

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is finally among us. At noon Eastern Time today, Best Buy’s New York City store at Union Square will start selling Samsung’s extra-slim 10-inch Tegra 2 tablet, with the first 200 buyers also receiving a matching leather pouch to store their precious inside of. Geographically challenged Android tablet lovers will also be able to pre-order the Tab 10.1 from Best Buy today (eventually, the pre-order button doesn’t currently work) and widespread US availability is still expected on June 17th. Pricing isn’t explicitly listed on Best Buy’s landing page, but we presume it’s the same as we’ve been told earlier: $499 for the 16GB or $599 for the 32GB WiFi-only versions. If you can’t live without some LTE goodness in your mobile life, Verizon’s also promised pre-orders for the 4G-capable Galaxy Tab 10.1 today, though that costs a far less palatable $530 (16GB) and $630 (32GB) on top of a two-year data contract.

[Thanks, Jack and Arturo]

Update: Best Buy has sorted out its systems and all four WiFi variants (black or white, with 16GB or 32GB storage) are up for pre-order.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on sale at NYC Best Buy today, pre-orders now open originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hits NYC Best Buy June 8, nationwide on June 17

Wondering when you can get your own Galaxy Tab 10.1, one that exchanges the cute field of robots on the back for an upgrade to Android 3.1? It appears that day is next week, with the NYC Best Buy in Union Square becoming the first to offer this tablet on Wednesday, June 8th. Those outside of the boroughs will be able to purchase theirs on the 17th, when this hunk of Honeycomb hits other retailers. The price? 16GB for $499, 32GB for $599, all in WiFi-only, though Sprint is said to start selling a similarly non-3G version sometime this summer. The press release below also confirms that the UI has been tweaked, adding in TouchWiz UX customizations, so it won’t be an entirely pure experience, but just how unclean it will be remains to be seen.

Update: We’ve confirmed with Samsung that the TouchWiz customization will actually come as a later, OTA update to the device, which we presume means it’ll be optional — at least initially.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hits NYC Best Buy June 8, nationwide on June 17

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hits NYC Best Buy June 8, nationwide on June 17 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Player priced on Best Buy mobile app, dares you to rate it

Look at what one curious tipster stumbled upon while thumbing through Best Buy’s mobile app — it’s the five-inch version of Samsung’s soon to be released Galaxy Player. The PMP is, for most intents and purposes, the Galaxy S handset devoid of that pesky 3G and calling functionality — in fact, it’s still known as the Galaxy S WiFi elsewhere in the world. Priced at $270, according to the app, the 8GB touchscreen player has two cameras (a VGA on the front and and 3.0 megapixel on the rear), a microSD slot, and an FM tuner. Back in March, we heard that the music player would be hitting our shores this spring, between this and its FCC appearance a couple of months back, we’ve got our fingers crossed that it will still make it in under the wire.

[Thanks, Josafat]

Samsung Galaxy Player priced on Best Buy mobile app, dares you to rate it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 10:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy Mobile Upgrade Checker reveals other numbers on your Sprint account, invites scaremongering

Some crack reporting from an NBC affiliate news station has revealed a little foible in Best Buy‘s cellphone upgrade checking utility. If you punch in your Sprint mobile number and ZIP code, you get taken to a screen showing all the other numbers on your account as well. This applies only when yours is the main number on the account, mind you, but the issue is in the obviously lax approach to securing data you might care to keep private — Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile customers have to pass a security check first. Of course, the actual risks resulting from someone being able to find other numbers associated with your cellular account are so small as to verge on the benign (“somebody can use that… for something”, as the KXAN report sagely advises), though that hardly excuses Best Buy from being sloppy with Sprint subscribers. They’re human too, you know!

Best Buy Mobile Upgrade Checker reveals other numbers on your Sprint account, invites scaremongering originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 09:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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