Hasta La Gadget!

Touch Wiz in Spanish — you know you love it. The Engadget Spanish crew grabbed a little time with Sammy’s Bang and Olufsen-powered Beat DJ M7600, and sadly, this one looks like it’s better in stills — the interface is a little laggy and unresponsive, and the “scratching” features seem like more of a goofy novelty than anything else. Vid after the break, amigos.

Continue reading Samsung Beat DJ hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung Beat DJ hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After years of providing the devices on which we spoke, Verizon is finally providing the Hub. The Verizon Hub is not the first VoIP product to use that moniker — with pay upfront for lifetime long distance startup Ooma having used the “hub” name for its primary home phone adapter — but the telco’s take on the screenphone represents a turning point in the evolution of consumer telecommunications.

For much of its existence, the cell phone had long played second-fiddle to the home phone as the wireless wonders implied expensive plans and inferior voice quality. Increasingly, though, consumers are finding connections to data services as critical as voice connections, and despite attempts that have ranged from the Cidco iPhone (yes, there was one years before iPhones by Cisco and Apple) and more recently the RSS-savvy GE InfoLink (now abandoned by Thomson’s exit from the cordless handset business), the home phone has begun to lag far behind its portable cousin as an Internet resource.

Enter our nation’s two largest telecom providers. Triple-play aspirant Verizon Wireless has joined rival AT&T in offering a touch-screen, Internet-savvy home phone system heavy on information delivery and communications functionality while working with up to four DECT expansion handsets. Unlike the questionably named Samsung HomeManager offered by AT&T, the screen on the Verizon Hub cannot be carried conveniently about the house like a tablet display. The Verizon Hub also uses IP for its voice and data communications whereas HomeManager uses broadband for data and a traditional circuit-switched connection for voice calls. Why would Verizon blithely bypass its own copper?

Continue reading Switched On: Verizon Hub is a handset homecoming

Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets, Wireless

Switched On: Verizon Hub is a handset homecoming originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

In a recent interview with Elevation Partners’ Roger McNamee, the Palm investor explained that Palm knew it had to step up its game after RIM launched the BlackBerry Pearl, which he described as “the first real consumer electronics product in the smartphone category.” The Pearl launch served as the coming out party for the BlackBerry brand among consumers as RIM began stepping up its advertising, and the product’s narrower hardware design was a noticeable break with the staid stylings of previous BlackBerry devices.

Indeed, back in November of 2006 as Palm rolled out the somewhat consumer-focused Treo 680, I wrote a Switched On column noting that the Pearl broke with the evolutionary path that RIM had been on and served as an example for the kind of hardware shift Palm needed to make.

Palm finally answered the Pearl with the Centro, a compact, inexpensive, and successful smartphone that has apparently served as the final resting place of the original Palm OS architecture. However, between the release of those two devices, the entry and subsequent SDK of Apple’s iPhone proved a far more significant turning point in the evolution of consumer smartphones. The iPhone’s resonance and popularity have provoked responses from many competitors, but there is a particular contrast in the flagship CDMA touchscreen handsets released by RIM and Palm — the other two smartphone developers that grow their own operating systems — since then.

Continue reading Switched On: With Pre, Palm breaks from the Storm

Filed under: Cellphones

Switched On: With Pre, Palm breaks from the Storm originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You didn’t think we’d let this one go without a followup, did you? Portal gun replica creator Harrison Krix was gracious enough to invite us to his workshop and get some hands-on time with it. Let’s get the two most common inquiries out of the way first: no, it’s not photoshopped and no, it doesn’t actually “work” (as in, it doesn’t create portals). The armament weighs between five or ten pounds, and all color shifting is done via a switch inside the back end. The middle tube, interestingly enough, is an acrylic plunger handle with a clear matte. The 26-year old graphic designer and graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design estimates he spent 150 hours and $350 in parts, although later models should take much less time. He’s had offers to create more iterations from employees at Bungie and Infinity Ward, and he’s thinking of making one to give to the Penny Arcade crew for their Child’s Play charity. For a look at it both in action and disassembled, check out the video after the break. Next up? A BioShock Big Daddy costume, with arm extensions and a working drill, just in time for next August’s Dragon Con in Atlanta.

Hands-on with the Portal gun replica

Portal gun replica (work in progress)

Portal gun replica build images and wiring

Continue reading Video: Portal gun replica hands-on

Filed under: Gaming

Video: Portal gun replica hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

The fourth annual Saluting Wares Improving Technology’s Contribution to Humanity’s awards were not held in the opulent imaginary venue of previous galas due to the subprime lending crisis of 2008. Rather, they were hastily distributed behind the Engadget trailer at CES 2009. Also, due to budget cuts and with the imaginary gold for the statuettes at record highs, we’ve had to consolidate the portable and home awards into a single ceremony.

Last year’s Product of the Year was the Apple iPhone, which became the reference point for other touchscreen smartphones after its release. While Apple added important improvements and unleased thousands of applications with the iPhone SDK, the 2008 Switchie for Product of the Year goes to the T-Mobile G1. While its body may be a little out of shape, the first Android phone sports a wide keyboard, strong browsing and mapping capabilities, and an open development environment should enable a wide array of follow-on handset models to deliver a stronger consumer experience than they do today. There is also much potential for Android to creep into other kinds of devices, as was shown by the Movit Mini at CES 2009.

Honorable mentions in the cell phone category are awarded to the sleek Nokia N73, the solid Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, and the integrated Samsung Instinct.

Continue reading Switched On: The 2008 Switchies

Switched On: The 2008 Switchies originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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