Time was “tl;dr” was the battle cry of lazy internet jackasses, people with no attention span who nevertheless found the energy and wherewithal to complain about the length of any digital piece of writing that dared to be longer than a few sentences. Today, at CES, tl;dr is an irritating new “innovation.” More »
OtterBox is making a big appearance here at ShowStoppers during CES 2013, and they unveiled their new Armor series of smartphone cases. The company is known for durable and indestructible cases, and the Armor series definitely skimp on that. In fact, the Armor series is OtterBox’s most toughest case yet, and we ended up getting our hands on the new case.
OtterBox says that new Armor series case is waterproof, drop proof, dust proof, and crush proof. It can withstand water as deep as 6.6 feet for up to 30 minutes before it’ll give. It’s drop proof from up to 10 feet and it can withstand up to 2 tons of pressure. Plus, completely dust proof, and the company says that “zero” dust will get into your phone.
Actually, the phone is so dust proof that they put screens over the speaker ports so that sound will still come out of the phone, but no dust will get inside. We have to say that it’s really impressive, and users who want complete protection of their phone will no doubt benefit from OtterBox’s new Armor series case.
The case will be available for the iPhone 4/4S, iPhone 5, and the Samsung Galaxy S III. Technically, OtterBox says that the case is still a prototype, but it’s “very close” to being a finished product. It’ll be available starting February 22 at a reasonable price of $99.
OtterBox Armor series hands-on is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This week the Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 has been revealed: a massively powerful smartphone working with Android and a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display with an Intel Atom Z2580 processor (that’s Clover Trail, mind you) under the hood. This smartphone is super slim at just 6.9mm and weighs in at just 162g, both of these specifications rendered extra impressive by the fact that you’re working with the features you’re about to read all about. This machine feels just as nice as it sounds, looking ready for the market in the very near future.
The Lenovo K900 is the company’s new hero phone, working with a composite of stainless steel alloy and polycarbonate in a Unibody mold – sleek and robust. The phone remains thin due to work Lenovo’s done on optimizing both the thinness of the camera setup and the layout of the internal battery. The front of this device is covered with top of the line Corning Gorilla Glass 2 for scratch protection as well – their newest solution.
Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 hands-on with Chris Davies:
Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 interview with Lenovo’s Mark Pinner:
Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 hands-on with 1080p display:
Though as Lenovo mentions, Intel has not released full specifications on the chipset as such, Lenovo will be bursting forth with this SoC sooner than later – April in China, in fact. Pricing, if you’re wondering, has not been announced at the moment. Then there’s the camera technology behind this machine’s lovely 13 megapixel shooter.
You’ll be working with a Sony Exmor BSI sensor as well as an F1.8 focal length lens. This camera has the widest aperture of any smartphone-based camera in the field today, and the front-facing camera has been given a boost as well. With a fabulous 88 degree viewing angle on the front-facing camera on this smartphone you’ll once again be working with the best of the best – no front-facing camera on a smartphone has a wider angle than that.
Have a peek at the hands-on look we’ve got above and below to get a handle on what this phone will mean for you in the very near future. At the moment it is, in fact, only announced for China – but we can dream! Stick around our CES 2013 portal all week long as well to make sure you’re into the fold with all of our up to the minute news bits and hands-on adventures.
Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Developed as an affordable and reliable solar-powered lantern that can be easily deployed to parts of the world lacking reliable infrastructures, the Luci also happens to be the perfect camping accessory since it’s lightweight, durable, waterproof, bright, and collapses as flat as a pancake. More »
Beatpower just announced its existence to the world today and it’s brought a fleet of speakers to help celebrate. For years its parent company, CorpCom, has developed and distributed audio products for other outfits, but it set out to develop its own line of HiFi Bluetooth speakers roughly 13 months ago. Each of the firm’s boxes connects to audio sources via bluetooth, feature USB ports for charging devices and are accompanied by a Bluetooth remote that can even control treble and bass. With the help of architects and industrial engineers, Beatpower has managed to concoct particularly striking audio hardware.
Take the outfit’s 40Hz to 20KHz BeatClear speaker, which packs 350mV amp input sensitivity, two tweeters and a pair of woofers inside a clear acrylic case. There’s no release date attached to the hardware just yet, but it’s set to retail for $199. The BeatBlock set of speakers wraps a pair of tweeters and a duo of woofers in a striking hand-stitched leather package, which comes in a variety of color combos, while offering a 20Hz to 20KHz frequency range. Word of a release date hasn’t arrived yet, but it’ll carry a $199 price tag.
Filed under: Portable Audio/Video
Source: Beatpower
We’ve seen our fair share of smartphones and devices that claim to be “water-resistant” or something close, but the folks from P2i aim to deliver the full experience to all smartphones. Yesterday we showed you guys Liquipel that will treat and waterproof your device for a fee, but P2i wants our OEMs to launch phones already fully protected.
The technology, product, and option isn’t really anything new at the moment. It features the same process that will treat your smartphone or tablet on a molecular level. Essentially coating every aspect of the device in a waterproof film invisible to the eye. This covers the electronics inside, speaker grills, cameras and everything else.
We’ve already been enjoying P2i’s technology in some of our favorite Android smartphones. The “Splash Guard” feature that Motorola introduced with their DROID RAZR and RAZR HD is all P2i. The difference between them and other companies is P2i wants our device to be protected out of the box, rather then ship them off for a water-proofing process.
Shown off here at CES 2013 is their brand new technology that builds on Splash Guard to make the entire device 100% waterproof, or what they call “dunkable” to the point where we can drop our smartphone in the tub for hours at a time without harm. As you saw in my image above they featured the Samsung Galaxy S III resting at the bottom of a tank completely unharmed. So while this technology is slowly becoming available to end users, hopefully we’ll just enjoy future smartphones that are 100% waterproof thanks to technology from P2i. They’re working with multiple partners and will be launched inside millions of smartphones throughout 2013.
P2i aims to bring waterproof smartphones to the mainstream is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Panasonic’s launching a pair of Toughpads that’ll take none of your nonsense — no matter what you throw at it. The FZ-G1 is a 10-inch version that runs Windows 8 Pro, while the seven-inch JT-B1 runs Ice Cream Sandwich. Both are following in the footsteps of the Honeycomb-running A1 and B1 that arrived back in 2011. Both are ruggedized to MilSpec standard 810G and should withstand immersion in water, have daylight viewable screens and the larger of the pair can even use a stylus with third-party apps.
The FG-Z1 10-inch Windows Machine has a 1,920 x 1,200 display and is packing a 1.9GHz Ivy Bridge Intel Core i5-3437U vPro CPU, a 128GB SSD (upgradeable to 256GB), up to 8GB of RAM an eight-hour battery and an optional microSD slot. Connectivity-wise, there’s USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and optional Verizon LTE or 3G. The JT-B1, on the other hand, has a 1,024 x 600 display and runs a 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4660, 16GB storage and 1GB RAM, built-in microSD slot, 13-megapixel rear and 1.3-megapixel forward facing cameras and an eight hour, 5,720mAh battery.
The larger of the pair will be available in March and will set you back $2,900, while the smaller one will arrive in February and will cost $1,300. Interested in knowing more, or just curious if you can use the hardware to knock down a few walls? Head on past the break for some PR.
Gallery: Toughpad FZ-G1
Gallery: Toughpad JT-B1
Continue reading Panasonic launches two new Toughpads, offers a choice of Windows or Android
Filed under: Tablets
OtterBox is here at ShowStoppers at CES 2013, and they’re just unveiling some new, updated iPhone cases. The Defender series is the company’s most popular product, and they just revealed an updated version that comes with an extra battery, as well as an accompanying mobile app that provides a user interface for monitoring the extra battery.
The case provides the same great protection that the Defender series has always provided, but this updated version, which OtterBox is still calling a prototype, comes with some extra new features, including an extra 1450mAh battery, which will provide double the power of the iPhone 4/4S, which comes with a 1440mAh battery on the inside.
The case also has ten LED indicators on the front, and each one represents 10% of the battery life, and clicking a button below the LEDs will turn on the indicators for a couple of seconds so that you can see what level the external battery is at without having to open up the OtterBox app.
Speaking of the app, OtterBox introduces iON Intelligence technology with this new Defender case. The app tells you how much juice you have left in both your iPhone and the external OtterBox battery, and will automatically determine when your iPhone battery needs more juice. Again, this is still an experimental sample, so some things may change, but the company said that we should expect it to arrive before the summer.
OtterBox Defender with iON Intelligence hands-on is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This week we’ve gotten the opportunity to have a talk with Sriram K Peruvemba, Chief Marketing Officer of Eink, showing today what’s now the world’s thinnest watch. This is the CST-01, a Kickstarter project at the moment, coming from the folks at CST (aka Central Standard Timing) and Eink itself, a partnership that’ll be delivering the watch to users this year. Have a peek at our talk with Peruvemba in video form here at Showstoppers during CES 2013.
What we’re seeing here is a watch that takes the best features of a regular watch, that being low power, readability, and an overall pleasing experience and made it as thin as its ever been. This watch is more than just rugged, too, able to be punched directly in the face (so to speak) without having its usability altered at all. The watch itself is actually only 0.80mm thin – miraculous, really.
The watch is charged through a base station that’ll be coming with the device when users receive it in the mail (or in stores in the future) and you’ll be able to choose from two different time displays, 24 or 12 hour formats. The whole weight of the device is 12 grams – that’s less than 5 pennies, imagine that! From what we’ve heard from Peruvemba right here live and in-action at Showstoppers, this machine is going to be a real fashion hit (as well as a tech hit for nerds of all kinds). See it soon!
The watch is in the process of being funded by a Kickstarter where the first 500 users will be able to own it for $99 (if you fund it, of course). After that you’ll be paying for the watch for a total of $129 USD. The watches we’re seeing here are right off the assembly line, prototypes right out of the factory, literally. Check the photos above and below and see it all in your hands soon!
Eink CST-01 world’s thinnest watch hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
[CES 2013] As much as smartphones have advanced over the years, one thing that could be improved is the actual part where it’s used as a phone as we’re sure you’ve experienced terrible call quality one too many times in the past. We’ve talked about HD Voice a few times over the years, but it’s always been something of a legend as handset manufacturers would announce their device is compatible with HD Voice, but the lack of carrier support made that feature unusable. That is, until today.
T-Mobile announced today at CES it is now the first U.S. carrier to support HD Voice calls nationwide. HD Voice, of course, improves the quality of your calls while keeping background noise to a minimum.
If you’re a Samsung Galaxy S III owner on T-Mobile, feel free to actually give someone a call to try out HD Voice for yourself. Of course, it would help if they had an HD Voice-compatible device as well so you both could talk about stuff as if you both were in the same room. That is, unless you two are in the same room, which we then recommend moving to another room before making that call.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Lenovo Unveils 4 Dual SIM IdeaPhone Devices, Trade In Value Of A Broken iPhone 4S Is Apparently The Same As A Near-Mint Galaxy S2,
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