Hasta La Gadget!

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of December 31st, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

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Exploring the world with the hottest cameras and smartphones, I’ve grown accustomed to drawing discreet glances from curious gadget enthusiasts. In Tokyo, it was Canon’s EOS M camera that netted polite peeks. In Hong Kong, it was the Galaxy Note II. From the moment I exposed the striking Galaxy Camera in Bangkok, however, those subtle scans turned into full-on stares, with several courageous passersby even inquiring about the latest Android-based Samsung device dangling from a strap around my wrist.

“Is that a phone or a camera?” Well, it’s certainly not the best camera, nor is it a passable “phone,” but for this early adopter, at least, it was poised to replace both. When Samsung first revealed its Jelly Bean-powered superzoom hybrid at IFA, the challenge became clear — there wasn’t room in my life for two Galaxy gadgets, but a 21x zoom-equipped all-in-one sounded mighty promising. After I finally unpacked it, the 4.8-inch, touchscreen-equipped, 16.1-megapixel shooter didn’t leave my side once during the next two weeks.

It streamed music in the gym, downloaded email on the go, and provided walking directions and historical context as I explored Thailand. But the Galaxy Camera’s impressive zoom also brought me far closer to the action than even the most powerful camera phone, and a micro-SIM from iPhoneTrip enabled instant uploads to Dropbox and Instagram far from the nearest open hotspot. As you may have gathered from our review, the Galaxy Camera wasn’t designed to replace anyone’s smartphone, and with the jumbo footprint and mediocre battery upping the inconvenience factor, could such a device feasibly become your one and only? You’ll find the answer after the break.

Continue reading Setting aside the smartphone: two weeks with Samsung’s Galaxy Camera

Filed under: Cameras, Mobile, Samsung

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American carriers love to launch their device lines in bundles, and AT&T just proved the rule in style. Forget the LTE iPad mini — six other devices have shipped in one day, covering just about every category Big Blue offers. Want a Windows tablet? There’s a $500 ASUS VivoTab RT waiting for you. Smartphones? HTC’s $200 One X+ covers the high-end, while its $50 One VX and Samsung’s $100 Galaxy Express target the more frugal among us. Even shutterbugs and cutting-edge networkers can pick up a $500 Samsung Galaxy Camera or Novatel’s $50 MiFi Liberate hotspot. There’s no doubt that AT&T is cramming the channel full of new gadgets in the hopes of scooping up all the Black Friday sales it can, but we’ll forgive the slightly cynical strategy for the sake of a wider device selection.

Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Tablets, Networking, Mobile, Samsung, HTC, ASUS, AT&T

PSA: HTC One X+, five other devices from ASUS, HTC, Novatel and Samsung on sale at AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s much-anticipated EK-GC100 Galaxy Camera finally hit stores in the UK late last week and we’ve managed to get our hands on one of the very first samples to cross the assembly line. We’re putting the Android-powered hybrid through its paces at this very moment, but since this is the company’s first entry in a brand new category, we wanted to have you along as we opened the box. This may be a camera, but it’s very much a Galaxy device, and that’s immediately evident when you first see the packaging.

The cam ships just as any premium smartphone, with a very thin selection of accessories — you get an AC adapter, USB cable, a wrist strap and a pair of pocket guides (there’s no user manual to speak of). Much like Samsung’s latest round of point-and-shoots, it uses microSD cards and charges via a micro-USB cable and AC adapter. Even the 1,650mAh battery looks like a smaller version of Samsung’s smartphone offering, rather than something that ships alongside the company’s traditional camera lineup. Rest assured, we’ll have much more to share later this week, but for now, we invite you to join as we unbox the Galaxy Camera in our video just past the break.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Camera unboxing (video)

Filed under: Cameras, Mobile, Samsung

Samsung Galaxy Camera unboxing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s Android-powered Galaxy Camera is a bit of a wild card, marrying Google’s Android Jelly Bean OS with a 16-megapixel camera — heck, it’s even got a 4.8-inch 1,280 x 720-pixel (308 ppi) touchscreen display. Yup, rather than offering a digital viewfinder out back like a normal digital point-and-shoot, the Samsung Galaxy Camera offers a multitouch panel; the entire back consists of that 4.8-inch screen, edge-to-edge. It’s not all touchscreen, though — several buttons (controlling a pop-up flash, power, zoom toggle, and shutter release) are also part of the somewhat bulky build. Beyond the WiFi radio built in, the Galaxy Camera also comes with 3G/4G support via micro-SIM — which we now know at least one carrier will support: AT&T.

During an event with the cellular data carrier this evening, we got our hands-on the Galaxy Camera once more (albeit now with an AT&T micro-SIM on board). That speedy 1.4GHz quad-core processor helped us along, speedily swiping through Jelly Bean’s panes and launching its photo app promptly. Apps like Instagram were also on display, allowing for even nicer photos to be defiled by software filters (we kid!). The AT&T connectivity allowed us to upload photos directly to the cloud while snapping, utilizing its Auto Cloud Backup feature; image quality isn’t quite professional-grade, but its no slouch either.

The Galaxy Camera is, for all intents and purposes, a full-on Android smartphone … minus that whole “phone” thing. Its heft is perhaps more than we’d like in a point-and-shoot, but that gigantic — and gorgeous — viewfinder out back certainly helps assuage our space concerns. The device arrives at both carriers and camera retailers this October for an unknown price.

Update: We’ve added a second gallery with a few shots we snapped with the Samsung Galaxy Camera at the event — forgive them if they’re not spectacular. The heat of the moment!

Update 2: We’ve added even more photos shot with the Galaxy Camera in to the second gallery below, and a quick hands-on video just after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Camera marries Android and photography on AT&T, we go hands-on (update: video!)

Filed under: Cameras, Mobile, Samsung

Samsung Galaxy Camera marries Android and photography on AT&T, we go hands-on (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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