Hasta La Gadget!

When Research in Motion introduced its PlayBook tablet Monday, it was diving into a market already dominated by Apple’s iPad.

But there’s other competition too, either already on the market or soon to be: The 5-inch Dell Streak is available now, and Samsung’s 7-inch Galaxy Tab isn’t.

Since the iPad started shipping in April, Apple has sold more than 3 million devices. In June, Dell introduced the Streak, a device billed as a tablet but priced like a phone. Samsung hopes to bring its tablet, the Galaxy Tab to market in time for holiday-season shopping.

RIM announced its latest device, the 7-inch PlayBook, at its developer conference Monday.

The PlayBook won’t be available till early next year. But it’s not too soon to see how its promised specs stack up with the main competitors it will face when it comes out.

*Battery life  as specified by the manufacturer

See Also:

• Kno Creates 14-inch Tablet for Students
• RIM Unveils Tethered Tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook
• How the Tablet Will Change the World
• Build Your Own Tablet for $400
• Samsung Introduces 7-Inch Tablet to Rival iPad
• Dell’s Streak Tablet Is Priced Like a Phone

Photo: BlackBerry PlayBook/Research In Motion

Alright AMD, we still haven’t forgiven you for burying the glorious name that was ATI, but if your next GPU refresh is as mighty as these numbers indicate, we might at least let you in from the doghouse. A slide detailing two flavors of the upcoming 40nm Barts chip has sprouted up from two independent sources online, and it shows some appreciable gains between generations. The new HD 67×0 cards appear manifestly speedier than their predecessors — with faster clocks, more texture units, and more ROPs — but the fun really gets going when you compare them to the HD 5870 and 5850, AMD’s previous high-end cards. Memory bandwidth and pixel fillrate are identical between the HD 6750 and 5850, while the HD 6770 even manages to beat the formerly imperious 5870 in a couple of areas. Of course, this is all still unconfirmed information, but considering that Barts is only an “upper midrange” chip that’s already stepping on the toes of last year’s finest, we feel safe in expecting some pretty big things from the flagship Cayman silicon when it lands — which will be soon if all these leaks and rumors are anything to go by.

[Thanks, Vygantas]

AMD Radeon HD 6770 and 6750 spec sheets emerge, give NVIDIA cause for concern originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So you own a Desire and want to know whether its new brandmates — the Desire HD and Desire Z — will represent an ergonomically appealing upgrade? We’ve got you covered with both a gallery of shots below and a neat video after the break encapsulating the size differences between the three models populating Desireland. Okay, we couldn’t resist, we threw in an iPhone 4 for comparison’s sake as well.

Continue reading HTC Desire family portrait (video)

HTC Desire family portrait (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know who the daddy is when it comes to single-card graphics performance, and we’ve even witnessed NVIDIA and ATI duking it out with multiple cards before, but this here roundup is what you might call comprehensive. Comparing a mind-boggling 23 different configurations, the Tech Report guys set out to determine the best bang for your DirectX 11 buck. Their conclusion won’t shock those of you who’ve been following the recent love affair between reviewers and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460: a pair of these eminently affordable cards regularly outpaced the best single-GPU solutions out there. Slightly more intriguing, however, was the discovery that its elder siblings, the GTX 470 and 480, have improved in performance to the point of being markedly ahead of ATI’s Radeon HD 5870, with the blame for this shift being put squarely on the shoulders of NVIDIA’s driver update team. Hurry up and give the source a read while it’s still fresh, we can’t imagine ATI letting this be the status quo for too much longer.

ATI CrossFireX versus NVIDIA SLI: performance scaling showdown originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A recent survey of 4,028 US consumers by ChangeWave has thrown up a number of illuminating statistics, which you might consider as predictable as they are informative. The chief takeaway is that people are keen on buying smartphones like never before, with 16% of respondents saying that they’ll be taking the plunge within the next 90 days, which marks the biggest increase in the survey’s history. Secondly, and crucially for vendor loyalists, Apple and HTC seem to be the biggest beneficiaries (or are they the stimulants?) of this interest, with both improving their share by over 50 percent between March and June of this year. RIM and Motorola have taken a tumble in that same timespan, while Palm has sadly failed to register even a single percentage point. We can definitely see the Droid X and BlackBerry 6 remedying things for the big boys, but Palm’s route out of ignominy seems a little less straightforward. You’ll find a chart of customer satisfaction — dominated by Apple in imperious fashion — after the break, and the full breakdown at the source link.

Continue reading Apple and HTC lead charge as smartphone market looks set to grow and grow

Apple and HTC lead charge as smartphone market looks set to grow and grow originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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