Hasta La Gadget!

Logitech’s touch-sensitive addition to the Squeezebox family, aptly named the Touch, has taken a long and hard road to retail. First uncovered by the FCC almost a year ago, announced by Logitech back in September of 2009, and then delayed again and again, we’ve finally managed lay our hands on one and, more importantly, start putting some fingerprints on its 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen. Does it deserve a hallowed place in the Squeezebox canon and, more importantly, is it worth the $299 — $100 more than the Squeezebox Radio we reviewed last year? Those answers and more after the break.

Continue reading Logitech Squeezebox Touch review

Logitech Squeezebox Touch review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Occasionally we’ve had strangers — very likely non-Engadget readers — coming up to us and ask, “Sorry mate, but is that the iPad?” To which we reply, “No, it’s the Dell Mini 5.” This may sound like a silly boo-boo to make, but there is this common misconception of the iPad being just “a bigger iPhone” while not knowing how much bigger it is (despite our best effort). To clear this up once and for all, we’ve brought the two devices in question together — the Mini 5 / Streak smartphone on the left, and the iPad on the right. Now it’s up to you guys to spread the love.

As a bonus, we also threw in various phones — HTC HD mini, Nexus One, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, and HTC HD2 — to pile on top of Apple’s latest toy, just to kill the Sunday afternoon. No magical and revolutionary devices were harmed in the making of this article.

[Thanks for the toys, Chris and Andy]

Apple iPad vs. Dell Mini 5 / Streak… fight! (Bonus: smartphone pile-on!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Festo may’ve already stirred up plenty of attention with its mesmerizing AirPenguin blimp, but let’s not forget its other weapon — fluidic muscles (elastomer tubes that contract when filled with fluid). At The Gadget Show Live in the UK, this German company was also showing off its AirMotion Ride car-racing simulator — essentially a driver’s seat suspended from just six fluidic muscles for the six degrees of freedom, while sound and vision are handled by its 5.1 surround sound speakers and a projector. The company claims that each of these lightweight muscles can generate forces of up to 1,600N, and since there are no mechanical parts inside, they make an ideal replacement for conventional hydraulic plungers as used on Force Dynamics’ and Motion-Sim’s simulators. You can see Festo’s machine in action after the break, but promise us that you won’t judge our driving ability.

Continue reading Engadget test-drives Festo AirMotion Ride, humiliates self (video)

Engadget test-drives Festo AirMotion Ride, humiliates self (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Ericsson’s no stranger to phones with decent cameras, and the Vivaz with European 3G frequencies aims to be one of them; after all these months we’ve finally got hold of this S60 device, which is the first phone capable of continuous autofocus on 720p video recording courtesy of its speedy 720MHz Cortex A8 and PowerVR GPU. Compared to its predecessor, the Vivaz bears a similar button layout and GUI to the Satio‘s, but lacks a front-facing camera, Fast Port (replaced by a micro-USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack), and a slide cover for the camera. The resistive touchscreen (sigh, more on that later) has been downsized from 3.5 inches to 3.2 inches but retains a similar resolution (640 x 360), while the camera sensor is also scaled down from 12.1 megapixels to a more sensible 8.1, possibly for the sake of picture quality and component cost. But enough with the comparison — let’s get cracking with the review.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Vivaz review

Sony Ericsson Vivaz review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Following the Legend, HTC continues its Android 2.1 lineup with the Desire — a gorgeous cousin of the renowned Nexus One. We can trace our drool all the way back to the Desire’s leak in December, but there have been some changes since then that made it slightly less desirable — DivX support and 720p video capture never made it to the final build, but it’s not like the company laid down any official promise on them, right? Anyhow, there’s still plenty to be loved here, namely the speedy 1GHz Snapdragon, the large AMOLED screen, and HTC’s latest revision of Sense UI that we’ve already seen on the Legend. Now, there are probably two questions floating in the minds of our readers: is the Desire worth the extra moola over the Legend? And is it any better than the Nexus One? Let’s all find out together.

Update: commenter NigelL pointed out that HTC will push out DivX support in a future update. Thanks!

Continue reading HTC Desire review

HTC Desire review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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