Hasta La Gadget!

The white curtains just lifted here at the Samsung booth at CES to unveil the Samsung 4G LTE Smartphone. This Verizon LTE-ready beast touts a Super AMOLED Plus display, runs Android 2.2 with TouchWiz and features a front-facing cam. On the rear it’s got an 8 megapixel auto-focus shooter and mini HDMI on the hip. We’re busy sorting out details and grabbing pics more. Stay tuned!

Update: We’ve added the gallery with hands-on shots for your viewing pleasure!

Update 2: Samsung nor Verizon were willing to talk labels, but it’s a pretty safe bet this phone is the SCH-i520 we peeked earlier in the week.

Samsung 4G LTE smartphone for Verizon (SCH-i520) first hands-on! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew that Honeycomb tablets would be a big deal here at CES, but one thing we didn’t expect was for Samsung’s Android Froyo-based Galaxy Tab to get a little spec bump already just a few short months after release. This one is strictly a Verizon special, stuffing in an LTE modem (while maintaining backward compatibility with Big Red’s 3G network), adding another 200MHz to the Hummingbird processor for a grand total of 1.2GHz, and moving the rear camera from 3 megapixels to 5. No word on pricing or a release date — but this definitely explains the recent price drop, eh?

Continue reading Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Tab sprouts LTE, upgraded camera

Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Tab sprouts LTE, upgraded camera 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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We’re still waiting for OpenPeak’s OpenTablet 7 to be released, but the company’s now already moving on to bigger and potentially better things — it’s just announced the Atom-based, Android-running OpenTablet 10. In addition to being larger, the screen is also of the transflective variety, and it’s built from Gorilla Glass so it’ll hold up to some abuse while you’re using it outside. Otherwise, the one-pound, half inch-thick device packs dual cameras including a front-facing 720p cam, an HDMI out for 1080p video, a digital MEMS microphone, and optional 3G connectivity in addition to the standard WiFi. Still no word on pricing or a release date (or complete specs, for that matter), but we’re hoping to learn more when we get our hands on it. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading OpenPeak debuts OpenTablet 10 with transflective display

OpenPeak debuts OpenTablet 10 with transflective display originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SRS Labs’ suite was sportin’ a number a devices showcasing Surround Everywhere, technology that lets you enjoy surround sound anywhere you go, laptops, phones, so yeah, anywhere. But the coolest thing we came away with was their vision of how surround sound should be mastered. Many in the industry are strungling with the transition from 5.1 to 7.1 and let’s face it, about the time the studios get their arms around 7.1, we’ll be asking for 9.1. So this new idea is to record where the audio is supposed to come from, instead of which speaker it should be played on. This way a movie would never need its audio remastered again, because the fact that the plane coming in at 2 O’Clock wouldn’t change no matter how many speakers you had, it wouldn’t even matter if you had a speaker placed precisely at 2 O’Clock. So basically your AVR would render the audio on the fly based on the number of speakers, and where you placed those speakers by using the recorded sounds and the data about those sounds. Kinda blew your mind right? The problem of course is at this point its just a cool idea and until content is created this way, there’s no chance we’ll actually be able to realize the benifits of this dream. Either way, we do commend SRS Labs for dreaming.

SRS Labs wants us to forget about our speakers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LAS VEGAS — After all the ruckus at CES 2011 over Motorola’s Honeycomb-dedicated XOOM tablet died down, I got a chance to get my hands on the latest in the company’s Droid series of smartphones, the Bionic.

Like its Droid X predecessor, the Bionic is definitely not small. The 4.3-inch screen is one of the largest on the smartphone market right now, and if you’re wearing tight jeans and hoofing it around the Vegas strip all day like I’ve been doing, a fat-bodied Bionic in your pocket might bring on a bit of chafing.

But the screen’s aesthetic appeal makes up for any inconvenience its size may bring. Shooting pictures with the back-facing 8-megapixel camera was made easier by the extra screen area for planning and viewing shots.

Whereas Apple’s iPhones are all about the smooth-backed covers, the Bionic goes the way of rubberized grip-style case. The phone’s backside has ample tooth to it, another line of defense against clumsy phone-droppers like myself. But the gripping doesn’t make the Bionic feel bulky or weighed down. It’s a nice touch, even if it may add to the aforementioned pocket-chafing.

We weren’t allowed to pop open the hood to see the phone’s 1-GHz dual-core processor insides, but by the looks of flipping through the Android 2.2 menu screens, the Bionic’s guts seemed to be doing their job well. No visible stuttering was to be seen in the few apps I ran, and load time was minimal. It was, however, a brand new phone with its 16 GB of on-board storage still relatively empty. I’d like to see how it runs after an app-hungry tween has had her hands on it.

All in all, I dug what I saw of the Bionic. It may be a bit large for my taste, but for the crowd that’s into the big and powerful (and prefers a Motorola handset over a Samsung offering) the Bionic is surely worth a second look.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com