Lenovo’s VAIO P Reserve Edition?

What you’re looking at is a genuine Lenovo device taken by a trusted source from inside of a showroom within IBM’s Beijing headquarters Lenovo’s Beijing office. The details sent to Engadget Chinese are brief so we can’t tell you if it’s a working model or not. Nevertheless, it bears all the hallmarks of a ThinkPad Reserve Edition with just a tad of VAIO P thrown in for taste… so to speak. A few more hurried shots at the break.

Update: Tipster clarified that the pics are from a showroom inside a Lenovo office, not IBM’s Beijing HQ.

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Lenovo’s VAIO P Reserve Edition? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NBC Universal content now available on PlayStation Network

Good news for Playstation 3 owners — NBC and Sony have just announced that NBC Universal content is now available on the PlayStation Network. In addition to NBC shows like The Office, 30 Rock, and Heroes, new movie releases like Milk and Role Models will hit PSN day and date with the DVD release, and back-catalog titles like The 40-Year Old Virgin and The Big Lebowski should already be up. Pricing is ballpark with the competition: $2.99 to $5.99 for SD and HD rentals, and $9.99 to $14.99 for SD and HD purchases. Not bad, but we won’t be happy until these fools drop the shenanigans and give us what we really want: Hulu. Make it happen, guys.

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NBC Universal content now available on PlayStation Network originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s touch-screen netbook gets another shot of rumor juice

Yesterday’s Apple netbook rumor courtesy of the Commercial Times / DigiTimes combo just received a boost of credibility by sources (presumably independent) speaking to the Dow Jones Newswire. Citing “two people close to the situation,” the DJ pretty much regurgitates the same info: Wintek will provide the touch-screen display which Quanta will manufacture into an Apple netbook as early as the second half of the year. The only new bit of information is the screen size said to be between 9.7 and 10-inches.

[Thanks, Sam; Image courtesy of Frunny]

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Apple’s touch-screen netbook gets another shot of rumor juice originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Super-rugged Dell Latitude E6400 XFR is tougher than you

We’ve always been drawn to the rugged Latitude E6400 ATG, and now we’re even more in love — Dell just announced the second-gen Latitude E6400 XFR. Carrying on in the tradition of the Latitude XFR D630, this newest model is a little more visually amped up than its all-business Latitude roots would suggest, and we’d say some showing off is in order — not only can the XFR handle the DoD’s MIL-STD 810F heat, dust and vibration requirements, the PR481 “ballistic” armor provides twice the impact protection of magnesium alloy and the whole thing is well-sealed enough to handle direct blasts of pressurized water. Inside, you’re looking at a Core 2 Duo paired up with both a 256MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M and an integrated Intel 4500MHD driving a sunlight-readable 14.1-inch WXGA display, all in a 2.2-inch thick and 8.5-pound package that’s 15 percent thinner and 5 percent lighter than the previous XFR. Yeah, we want one. No detailed pricing yet, but you’ll have to save quite a few pennies to get rough with this one — the starting number is $4,299. Hit up a bunch of pics in the gallery and head after the break for a promo video of the XFR taking quite a beating.

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Super-rugged Dell Latitude E6400 XFR is tougher than you originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple touch-screen netbook in Q3?

Boom: Apple netbook in Q3 — that’s the rumor being spread by the Commercial Times / DigiTimes tag-team of electronics tattlers. Apparently, Wintek will supply the touch-panels to Quanta computer who’ll be tasked with assembling Apple’s netbook. Take this one with a grain of salt though — while these two Taiwan-based magazines tend to be accurate with insider info related to Taiwan-based companies like Acer and ASUS, they can often be wide of the mark with rumors related to foreign companies. Unless of course we missed the launch of the Blu-ray Xbox 360 and G5 PowerBooks.

[Image courtesy of Frunny]

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Apple touch-screen netbook in Q3? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hulu blocks boxee browser entirely, gloves get ripped halfway off

As a wise man once said: “Damn, that’s just cold, son.” Merely hours after boxee announced its latest alpha build along with RSS feed support for Hulu, said video portal has now blocked off boxee‘s browser entirely from accessing its content. If you’ll recall, boxee saw a huge increase in interest when it first added easy access to Hulu, and once Hulu demanded that it be removed, boxee sadly complied. The latest move just seems “cold blooded,” as now boxee users who attempt to surf over via a Hulu RSS feed link will be greeted with an infinite amount of nothing. boxee is quick to point out that its browser doesn’t access Hulu content “any differently” than IE, Firefox, Opera or any other browser, which does a good job of explaining just how deliberate this move is. Needless to say, we get the feeling this bout is just getting started.

[Image courtesy of ZatzNotFunny]

Update: boxee now says things are working. For the moment, anyway. Feel free to join us as we throw our hands in the air and give up on understanding this mess.

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Hulu blocks boxee browser entirely, gloves get ripped halfway off originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BeBook 2 e-reader revealed and in the wild at CeBIT 2009!

There it is, folks — the BeBook 2. We knew Endless Ideas was bringing its next-generation BeBook to CeBIT, but we had no idea it’d be this well under wraps. We chatted with the company’s CEO and managing director a bit about the direction of the BeBook as a whole, and they’re very much believers in keeping format support wide open and giving readers the choice of where to pull content from. We were blessed with a few minutes of hands-on time with the new and improved e-reader, and while the software was still not finalized (thus our inability to photograph it more), we were impressed with what we saw.

The next iteration of the BeBook should be a serious contender in the e-reader market, particularly in Europe where Amazon’s Kindle has yet to invade. The inclusion of WiFi and 3G is a good move (great move, actually), as those two additions open up all sorts of possibilities that non-connected readers simply can’t access. As for the device itself? We’re digging it. The build quality felt remarkably sturdy, the aesthetics were beautiful and the thinness was certainly notable. The e-ink display has also stepped up the greyscale level from the original BeBook, and battery life should remain the same despite not being as bulky. As you can tell, the screen also supports doodling, and it tracked inputs as well as we could’ve hoped. We still couldn’t pry out a price, but you can be on the lookout for this to drop worldwide somewhere in the Q3 to Q4 2009 time frame.

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BeBook 2 e-reader revealed and in the wild at CeBIT 2009! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia confirms North American 5800 3G reception issues have been fixed

It’s official: Nokia has a fix. It seems that a “configuration change” — which we’re assuming means a software-based setting of some sort — was responsible for the 3G disaster on the first batch of North America-spec 5800 XpressMusics to hit the market, and the company has been able to fast-track a new firmware (not a common occurrence for those guys, but clearly, time was of the essence here). Revised units will be on sale “shortly,” while existing owners are being asked to call Nokia’s customer care, or alternatively, they can step into a flagship store to have their device exchanged. Too bad we can’t update these things ourselves, but at least we get the pleasure of unboxing it all over again, eh? Follow the break for the full statement.

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Nokia confirms North American 5800 3G reception issues have been fixed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC black Magic (Sapphire) hands-on: a Vodafone exclusive

Make no mistake, the all-black HTC Magic is for real. Separated here at CeBIT from its glistening white counterpart by an equally white G1, this near-final Magic looked just stellar in its glossy dark coat. We chatted it up with an on-hand representative who confirmed that the handsets on display weren’t absolutely finalized, and that when launched exclusively on Vodafone in Europe (you read that correctly), the Voda logo would be proudly plastered on. He stated that there were no immediate plans for selling an unlocked one in Europe or abroad, but that’s just the standard line given when a carrier has yet to get their special toy. He also affirmed that HTC “believed deeply” in Android, and that the world at large would be seeing a lot more where this came from in the near future. Have a look at what these lucky Europeans will soon have access to in the gallery below.

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HTC black Magic (Sapphire) hands-on: a Vodafone exclusive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Beatles come to ‘Rock Band,’ instruments and all (update)

Do you love the Beatles? Do you love Rock Band? Are you ready to totally lose it? If you said yes, that’s good — because MTV Games and Harmonix have just announced a partnership with Apple Corps, Ltd. to bring the band’s music and instruments to the Rock Band universe. According to the PR, the game (which apparently lets you do all kinds of awesome Beatles-related rocking) will also premiere with a set of new hardware “modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career.” Right now they’ve just got a holder page up with a launch date of September 9th, but as soon as we get our eyes on the gear, we’ll let you know.

Update: Here’s some more information to cleanse your pallet. The game, known henceforth as The Beatles: Rock Band, will be sold software-only for $60 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii (note the extra Hamilton over the usual Nintendo pricing). The standalone guitars will be sold separately for $100, and if you’re opting for the Limited Edition Premium Bundle, featuring the game and all instruments, it’ll set you back $250. No word on pricing outside of US just yet. Despite the Rock Band branding, it’s considered a standalone title and no one is talking right now about any connectivity, downloadable content or transferring of songs between Beatles and other RB games. According to Joystiq, you’ll be able to rock out to 45 songs from the band’s 1962 to 1969 EMI catalog. Full press release after the break.

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The Beatles come to ‘Rock Band,’ instruments and all (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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