Hasta La Gadget!

Sony Ericsson announced the latest addition to its high-end Xperia series of smartphones last week at CES with the debut of the Xperia Arc.

It’s a slick little number, and I got to spend a bit of time playing with it on the show floor.

The Arc’s screen measures in at an expansive 4.2 inches, a screen size proving to be very popular in smartphone announcements this week. The 849 x 480 resolution on the capacitive touchscreen highlights visual media well, and Sony is doing all it can to play up the entertainment-hub aspects of the Arc. HDMI-out lets you hook up to an HDTV with an HD cable — which comes included with the phone, saving you another trip to Best Buy.

And much like Motorola’s new Atrix, when hooking the phone up to a TV-out, the Arc’s UI is replicated on the screen, even rotating depending on the position of the phone. Essentially, you can turn your TV into a wireless device and start web browsing or watch YouTube videos through the phone to your big screen.

The 8.1-megapixel back-facing camera is easy to shoot with, especially on the Arc’s very bright screen. It’s also capable of recording video at HD 720p, which looked and ran smooth in playback on the Arc itself.

While many of the phones we saw announced last week will be running Froyo, the Xperia Arc has a leg up on its competitors with the latest Android OS release, Gingerbread 2.3. At a show where many of the big manufacturers are showcasing two or three new Android smartphones with none of them running Gingerbread, it was a refreshing change of pace to see Sony Ericsson’s up-to-date offering.

Most striking about the Arc is its titular shape, measuring in at a very slim 8.7mm at the phone’s waist. While the shape of the Arc is a nice fit for resting in the hand, it’s essentially an exercise in creating attractive industrial design, and I think it works. The metallic-blue finish on the back cover and the silver sheen on the phone’s sides give it a damn fine look.

I was a bit concerned with the plastic construction, as there wasn’t a lot of metal composing the outside of the phone casing. On the plus side, it keeps the phone light and not too bulky, but I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that it might not hold up to a good drop from a high-enough spot.

The Xperia Arc is indeed a high-end phone, and though Sony Ericsson didn’t give any exact details on pricing, the company “anticipates a premium smartphone price” upon its release. We should start to see the Arc pop up globally some time in the spring.

Photos: Jon Snyder, Mike Isaac/Wired.com

The technology behind the Hydra Sixense motion controller has been in development for a while now, but Razer was actually showing it off at CES this year. Unfortunately, it was strictly a hands-off situation at the booth — we could only look on with jealousy as the Razer rep played through some gorgeous Portal 2 level. What we could see is that the magnetics-based controllers are very responsive, spatial, and multi-dimensional; these aren’t your parent’s simplistic Wii-style flick controls. There’s still no word on price or a release date, but we’re hearing “under $100” and “early” this year. It’s hard to get totally excited about a PC hardware peripheral, given the smaller quantity of games (particularly hardware-specific titles) over in desktop land, but with Valve support and what appears to be the perfect control scheme (dual analog sticks, dual fully 3D-sensing motion controllers), we’d say the Hydra has a better shot at winning us over than anything else of its ilk. Check out a video after the break for a bit of Hydra action.

Continue reading Razer Hydra Sixense motion controller eyes-on

Razer Hydra Sixense motion controller eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One day, you’ll have a little tablet or phone, and carry it everywhere. It’ll be your only computer. When you need to use a “real” PC, you’ll dock it. Motorola’s Atrix is a little glimpse at that day. More »

Maybe, just maybe, you’ve noticed that Engadget relocated this past week to the City of Sin for CES 2011. Oh yes, we set up camp in a double-wide trailer, liveblogged our hearts out, combed the show floor, and worked our rear ends off to bring you more gadget news than you ever thought possible. It’s true, we’ve written over 720 posts (40 or so about tablets alone!), shot more than 180 videos, and brought you over 350 photo galleries in the last seven days. That’s a ton of technology news and products, but naturally, only certain ones have been able to rise above the rest and stick out in our scary collective hive-mind. With that said, we’ve complied our annual best of list for you, so hit the break and feast your eyes on what are bound to be some of the best products of the new year.

Continue reading Best of CES 2011

Best of CES 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve always liked the idea of having a Bluetooth watch streaming feeds from our phones, because deep down inside, we all want to act like special agents in public. Sadly, there aren’t many of these wearables to choose from in the present market. In fact, with the inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry seemingly stuck in limbo, what we have left is the Europe-only Sony Ericsson LiveView for Android, and maybe something nice from Fossil as well if its concept design gets picked up. To seize this opportunity, Velocity Micro is now working on its own connected Android watch — currently known as the Cruz Watch — that’s destined for the sub-$200 market in mid-Q2 2011.

Here’s what we learned about this cool-looking prototype during our exclusive hands-on at CES: in many ways, it’s conceptually identical to the LiveView — it’s a watch, it’s a Facebook feeds reader, it’s a multimedia remote control (for Android’s music app and Android-powered TVs), and it can show you incoming caller IDs. While the Cruz Watch may be a bit of a lightweight when it comes to apps, its hardware certainly bests SE’s offering in several ways: for starters, it has a full touchscreen that takes swipe and tap gesture inputs (instead of using navigation touch controls on the bezel), and it sports a 1.8-inch LCD instead of a 1.3-inch OLED display. There are also a few software features that we dig, especially with the interchangeable clock face: two analog, two digital; and the incoming call notifier pulls the caller’s profile photo from your contact list, which is something that the LiveView can’t do. We’re told that since this watch is powered by Android 2.0 (and possibly something different on retail units), Velocity Micro might be able to implement app installation in the near future, so we shall see. Video walkthrough after the break.

Continue reading Velocity Micro Cruz Watch hands-on preview

Velocity Micro Cruz Watch hands-on preview originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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