ASUS to unveil a phone-docking tablet at Computex?

We love teasers, but the wait can be unbearable sometimes. Luckily, all it takes is a tweak in the URL to uncover ASUS’ upcoming Computex teaser pics ahead of time, as discovered by our eagle-eyed reader Anas. As you might have already figured out, the image on the left — which just went live — seems to be just a reminder of the Eee Pad MeMO’s June launch, though the words “A Tablet That Jumps Out at You” could also imply a device bearing 3D functionality of some sort. Maybe ASUS managed to upgrade said 7-inch Honeycomb tablet just in time? We shall see.

But the real meat here lies in the remaining image, which is scheduled to close the loop on the “Pad or Phone” teaser campaign this coming Sunday. What’s new is merely the intriguing line “How about Both?” below the old text, accompanying the silhouette of what appear to be a large tablet and a smaller phone-like device. Could this mean ASUS is toying with the idea of an Atrix-like docking combo, except the lapdock is instead just a tablet? We could well be stretching here, but hey, ASUS does say it wants to “break the rules,” right? Stay tuned as we’ll find out more at Computex 2011 next week.

[Thanks, Anas A.]

Update: It should be noted that the phone-docking idea we’re referring to is not related to the MeMO and MeMic duo — look at the second pic closely and you’ll see that the smaller device has four Android soft keys, whereas the MeMic has different buttons. Check out the close-up after the break.

Continue reading ASUS to unveil a phone-docking tablet at Computex?

ASUS to unveil a phone-docking tablet at Computex? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cydle i30 cradle delivers digital TV to your iPhone, finally lands at FCC

Back in 2010, when we caught a glimpse of Cydle’s M7 Android tablet at CES 2010, the company was also touting the i30, an iPhone cradle capable of delivering real-time digital TV to the smartphone. That cradle caught a little bit of air time at CES the following year, but still wasn’t ready for market. Well, it looks like that’s about to change — now, just a few months shy of two years since the Mobile DTV standard was minted, the i30 is finally rearing it’s antenna-sporting head over at the FCC. According to the User Manual, outed in the filing, the iPhone case uses its antenna to catch local mobile channel signals and shoots them to the iPhone via WiFi. The case is also packing a rechargeable battery, and when connected to the supplied AC adapter, pumps juice to both the dock and your iPhone. Of course, you’ll need the Cydle ATSC M/H Mobile TV app (we know, it’s a mouthful) to get the whole thing going, but getting your digital TV on is apparently relatively simple from there. For more photos of the Cydle i30 cradle, including shots of its exposed guts, follow the source link below.

Cydle i30 cradle delivers digital TV to your iPhone, finally lands at FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Galaxy Tab 8.9 keyboard dock spied in Russia, TouchWiz poked on video

Galaxy Tab 8.9 Keyboard Dock

Hey, look at that: it’s a keyboard dock for the Galaxy Tab 8.9. The folks at mforum.ru caught this guy on camera at the Russian launch of Samsung’s latest slates. We don’t have a lot of details here, but it looks a heck of a lot like the dock for the original Tab. In fact, the only difference we could spot is that it seems to cradle the tablet in landscape mode instead of portrait, which is a small but very welcome change — Sammy probably just pulled out the plastic insert used to prop up the older model and called it a day. As for price or ship date, only Samsung knows for sure but, so you don’t walk away feeling cheated, there’s a lengthy hands on video after the break. We don’t speak Russian, so we’ve got no idea what the handler’s impressions are, but you get a pretty thorough tour of the TouchWiz tweaks for Honeycomb.

Continue reading Galaxy Tab 8.9 keyboard dock spied in Russia, TouchWiz poked on video

Galaxy Tab 8.9 keyboard dock spied in Russia, TouchWiz poked on video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Streak Pro Honeycomb tablet pictured, likely to be with us in June

Android Honeycomb OS, 10-inch screen size with 1280 x 800 resolution, and NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 (T20) chip on the inside. If those specs sound familiar, it’s because most manufacturers already have a tablet just like Dell’s upcoming Streak Pro. This slate from Round Rock got us a little hot under the collar recently, when it appeared it would ship with the T25 Tegra 2 silicon — which runs at 1.2GHz and offers 3D support — but nope, it’s same old, same old from Michael and company. Still, the Streak Pro will apparently come will a brushed aluminum back, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB storage options, dual mics, dual cameras (2 megapixel on the front, 5 megapixel ’round back), and a choice of four colors: blue, pink, black, and red. If that’s not enough customization for you, Dell’s also adding its Stage UI atop Android, while support for AT&T’s LTE network is also said to be under consideration. You can see some of the new tablet’s accessories at the source link below, which also advises us to expect the Streak to go Pro in June, as previously anticipated.

Dell Streak Pro Honeycomb tablet pictured, likely to be with us in June originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 03:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air review

What’s that, an alien egg? Nope. Memory foam iPillow? No, silly, it’s a Zeppelin, a Zeppelin Air more specifically. Bowers & Wilkins brought us the first iPod-centric Zeppelin in the middle of the great iPod dock flood of ’07. A few years later they downsized and brought us a mini version. The logical extension after the advent of AirPlay is here: a Zeppelin that does its thang without wires. We’ve been beaming music to it for a few weeks now — wanna find out how our relationship has been? Click through, captain.

Continue reading Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air review

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola promises more Atrix-like laptop docks for future phones

Motorola’s Atrix 4G laptop dock was a seriously sweet concept, which is why we were so disappointed when it failed to pan out. Sounds like Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha is ready to give it another try, though — on the company’s earnings results call this past week, he told investors that Moto is planning a whole series of Lapdock devices in the second half of the year:

You will see multiple devices from us in the second half launching with these capabilities, and we will expand the range of our Lapdock devices so we cover a broader price point, addressing both the enterprise premium tier as well as more consumer tiers.

“We plan on introducing successive iterations of our Webtop software and accessories that incorporate improved productivity tools and multiple price points,” he also said, echoing previous promises to include Webtop in all high-end smartphones starting this summer. Perhaps those closely spaced I/O ports on the Droid Bionic and Targa won’t go to waste after all? If you simply can’t wait, Sanjay claims there’s also an official price drop inbound for the Atrix 4G — AT&T will offer a bundle with the Lapdock and phone for $400 later this month.

Motorola promises more Atrix-like laptop docks for future phones originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 18:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Desk Phone Dock review

With every passing day, more people are ditching their landlines in favor of using their cellular phones as a combination device. Smartphones are no doubt excellent means of contacting other humans and managing our lives, but some of us miss the simpler days — when a phone was just a phone. If you’re a proud owner of an iPhone but looking to head down the retro road, Kee Utility would like to point you in the right direction. When we first saw the Desk Phone Dock, we were pretty intrigued by its looks but had questions about its practicality. What you see here is the $150 answer. Keep reading to see how well we got on with it.

Continue reading Desk Phone Dock review

Desk Phone Dock review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone turntable concept brings dropped calls to your record collection

Any audiophile worth their weight in 180 gram vinyl will gladly tell you that nothing sounds quite as good as a record. Unfortunately, the format has a few major drawbacks, like a lack of portability and the fact that it really sucks at making phone calls. The iPhone, on the other hand, is light years ahead of those fronts — well, one of out two ain’t bad. This new concept from designer Olivier Meynard offers the best of both worlds, embedding a horizontal iPhone dock next to a wheel of steel, so you can play back your favorite LP through the built-in speakers and encode those tracks as MP3s, which are uploaded to your handset as it charges. Finally, a way to turn your long out of print prog rock albums into ringtones, as they were meant to be heard.

iPhone turntable concept brings dropped calls to your record collection originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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B-Squares bring portable solar energy and Arduino compatibility to toy blocks (video)

We’ve seen plenty of portable solar chargers in our time, but few have looked quite as versatile as B-Squares — a new collection of 3D modular energy storage devices that can be arranged in various configurations, according to the kind of gadget you’re looking to juice. Developed by MIT grads Jordan McRae and Shawn Frayne, each solar-powered B-Square features a sticky microsuction surface, along with magnetic and electric contacts at each corner, making it easy to connect and arrange them in different formations. Rotating a single square will change its electrical circuit, depending on its adjacent connection. Some B-Squares, for example, feature LED surfaces, allowing you to create solar-powered lanterns, while others have solar panels, or simply serve as rechargeable battery sources. There’s even a square devoted to Arduino boards, along with another surface designed to dock and charge iPhones. McRae and Frayne have already put together a full “recipe book” of different configurations, though the DIY route seems a lot more enticing to us. Their B-Squares are set to leave the prototype phase on May 1st, at an as yet unspecified price. Check them out in video action after the break.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Continue reading B-Squares bring portable solar energy and Arduino compatibility to toy blocks (video)

B-Squares bring portable solar energy and Arduino compatibility to toy blocks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (UK edition) review

The world’s love affair with tablets may have been bubbling along under the surface for a while, but it really got started in earnest during CES 2010. Back in those wild days, you could see 15-inch jumbo screens, TV tuners, and even hybrid pseudo-laptops stalking the tablet area of your favorite trade show. ASUS was there too, of course, though it still believed in the upstart smartbook category — a modernized take on the netbook that relied on an ARM CPU and a mobile OS to extract more battery life out of a lighter, thinner device — and was busy showing off a seductively slim prototype of just such a machine. Alas, nothing came of that Neo concept, most likely because it was relying on Android 1.6 and a Tegra 2 system-on-chip that was then still months away from hitting the market.

Today, however, is a different day. The 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 is finally being produced in volume, Google has evolved Android to version 3.0, specifically targeting higher-resolution displays, and ASUS has abandoned the idea that a keyboard is crucial to mobile computing. No, wait, that last bit’s still there. The Eee Pad Transformer is a 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet very much in keeping with the current trend, but it also has an optional keyboard dock that turns it into a, you guessed it, instant smartbook. So, does that mean you’ll get two devices in one or has ASUS been overly ambitious and compromised too much? We got to grips with the £380 16GB WiFi-only model and its keyboard buddy (£430 when bought as a pair) in an effort to find out. Answers await just past the break.

Continue reading ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (UK edition) review

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (UK edition) review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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