Hasta La Gadget!

Our trailer was just visited by an iriver rep bearing his company’s Kindle killer in waiting, the Story HD. This 6-inch e-reader touts a bodacious 1024 x 768 resolution, which contributes to an even better contrast ratio than on Amazon’s E Ink slate, while software optimizations between now and release are expected to make the Story HD the fastest-refreshing device of its kind. The display itself is built by LG Display and is accompanied by a Freescale Cortex A8 CPU, 2GB of onboard storage, and an SDHC card-reading slot. Sun rays are, as expected, absolutely no problem and we have to admit that on first sight we thought the device had a sticker affixed to its front — its that good at reproducing printed materials. Physically, it seems to have been constructed with the third-gen Kindle as its dimensional blueprint, albeit with quite a different control scheme. The hand-built proto unit we played with wasn’t really ready to have its ergonomics judged properly, but iriver has plenty of time until the expected May launch to iron out any kinks. Content distribution partnerships have already been sewn up for the US, so now it’s just a matter of patience until we get our e-reading on in gorgeous XGA resolution. Video hands-on after the break.

Continue reading iriver Story HD e-reader preview (video)

iriver Story HD e-reader preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Too broke to spring for an SSD? Fret not, as you’re most definitely not alone. Thankfully for you, Western Digital’s still cranking out lust-worthy hard drives, with its latest Scorpio Black being particularly so. Offering 750GB of capacity, 16MB of cache and a 7200RPM spindle speed, the WD7500BPKT relies on Advanced Format technology to make the magic happen. It’s on sale starting right about now for $149, giving you little reason to continue to conserve space on that 128GB drive you’ve been living with for the past three years.

Continue reading WD throws out 2.5-inch 750GB Scorpio Black hard drive, makes your laptop beg for an upgrade

WD throws out 2.5-inch 750GB Scorpio Black hard drive, makes your laptop beg for an upgrade originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Let’s be clear about something: Microsoft’s Touch Mouse isn’t just another one of Redmond’s interesting looking computer peripherals, it’s the result of one of the company’s well-known research projects. There are lots of concept mice that Microsoft has been toying around with in its labs (one even has a webcam inside), but the Touch Mouse is specifically based on one called the “Cap.” Led by Hrvoje Benko, the aim was to put advanced touch capabilities into a mouse that wouldn’t require users to adjust their usual pointing and clicking habits. And that’s exactly what the $80 Touch Mouse does — from afar it looks like any old wireless mouse and you can right and left click with no issue, but up close the area covered with small Xs is actually made of a matrix of capacitive touch electrodes.

We caught some time with Benko this afternoon and he spilled all about the mouse and also gave us a lengthy lesson on the touch and gesture capabilities. We have to say there are lots of gestures, and if you’re coming from using Apple’s Magic Mouse or touchpads it could be a bit confusing, but there are some very unique shortcuts, including the ability to just swipe a thumb to move you backwards and forwards and minimize windows by swiping two fingers down. As for the actual hardware, it really feels like any other mouse, but we do have to say that the smooth plastic coating feels very nice on the fingers. We could go on and on, or we could just show you how it’s all done in the video below. Oh, and also don’t forget to check out some pictures of the original Cap mouse in the gallery below.

Continue reading Microsoft Touch Mouse: the history and hands-on

Microsoft Touch Mouse: the history and hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same at MSI, as the company’s two tablets — due to ship within three months — still feel like early prototypes. MSI showed off both its Windows 7 and Android 10-inch slates at CES 2011, now known as the WindPad 100W and WindPad 100A, and both sport last-gen tablet specs. Despite pitching the Windows device as an Oak Trail device, the WindPad 100W’s still got a 1.66GHz Atom Menlow Z530 CPU here, and Windows 7 is seriously laggy and unresponsive despite the presence of a 32GB SSD and 2GB of RAM. Though it have the promised HDMI port, it’s basically the same device we saw in May of last year.

Meanwhile, the WindPad 100A (nee WindPad 110) has indeed had a redesign, but possibly for the worse — it presently only has a single physical key pulling double-duty as Back and Power, and MSI’s no longer listing Tegra 2, just a ARM Cortex A8 chip from an undisclosed vendor. It’s actually got a fairly useful custom skin on top to display icons at proper tablet resolution and quickly swap between multimedia, the full Android Market, and a full 1GB of RAM, but the device wasn’t anything special otherwise. If you ask us, an Android 2.2 tablet with these specs is going to be a hard sell in a post-CES 2011 world. Still, it’s always possible MSI could pull things together at the last minute and surprise us. PR after the break.

Continue reading MSI WindPad 100W and 100A tablets hit CES 2011, we go hands-on

MSI WindPad 100W and 100A tablets hit CES 2011, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were unaware, we’re pretty psyched about the upcoming display tech from Mirasol. We were when we peeped it last year, and we’ve been eagerly awaiting this screen tech’s arrival ever since. Despite promises from PocketBook USA that we’d see an actual consumer product at this year’s convention (and even a leaked video), when we hit the company up they met us with blank stares and promises that we’d see it at CeBIT. All we were able to find was another Qualcomm reference device, which is still totally drool worthy and makes us more eager for it to hit shipping devices. The screen actually looks a bit improved this year, and we’re not seeing the same yellowing that we’ve noticed in the past. You don’t have to take our word for it though, we’ve got photo proof for you to feast your eyes on below.

Update: We just paid Qualcomm another visit, and this time the folks confirmed that the Android tablet in their recent promotion video is definitely not a real product, ergo not the PocketBook Android tablet. We were also told that had it been the real deal, they would’ve made a huge announcement at CES. Ah well, we’ll just have to wait until CeBIT.

Mirasol-equipped Qualcomm reference tablet hands-on (update: Android tablet confirmed to be a mock-up) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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