Hasta La Gadget!

Google is bringing voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation to Android smartphone users in India. While the functionality’s been available since January if you’ve rooted your device, the official version lands today with a localized “Indian English” voice option. At the same time, it’s adding live traffic information for major roads in big cities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Hyderabad — with both arriving today on handsets running Gingerbread and up. At the same time, it’s giving Google Map Maker and Biking Directions to users in New Zealand — and college students at over 150 universities worldwide will now be able to find themselves thanks to Street View maps on campus. Of course, that does mean you can no longer use Google as an excuse as to why you missed Phys. Ed. 202 next semester.

[Thanks, Devanshu]

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Mobile

Google Maps unveils new features in India, New Zealand and 150 universities worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RadioShack might have had a difficult time keeping a lid on its partnership with Cricket, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in the official news. Launching under the expected RadioShack No-Contract Wireless banner, the unfettered phone service includes lets shoppers pick either $25 or $35 plans for basic feature phones or, more importantly, some tempting $50 and $60 smartphone plans. On top of unlimited domestic voice and messaging, these last two rates offer a respective 1GB and 2.5GB of data before throttling kicks in, with hotspot support, international text messaging and visual voicemail reserved for the highest-end tier. You’ll find just two Huawei phones if you wander into a RadioShack store for the Wednesday launch: the $40 Pillar, a keyboard-touting basic phone, and a white-tinged, $150 Mercury Ice that iterates on the Android 2.3-toting Mercury only in the change of color. We’re promised two additional, unnamed phones before the end of the month, and smartphones on the No-Contract service will be the only Cricket devices shipping with 8GB microSDHC cards to feed that Muve Music habit. The nitty-gritty of the hardware and plans await after the break.

Continue reading Cricket and RadioShack confirm No-Contract Wireless, ship two Huawei phones to celebrate

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Cricket and RadioShack confirm No-Contract Wireless, ship two Huawei phones to celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, MetroPCS welcomed the Coolpad Quattro 4G into its stable and we also caught wind of a redesigned Huawei Mercury for Cricket. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of August 27th, 2012.

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of August 27th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Mobile Miscellany: week of August 27th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Sep 2012 21:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile wants to offer as much of a lure to smartphone newcomers as to power users who might spring for its truly unlimited data, and the ZTE Concord might just be the right kind of bait. The truly 2010-vintage Android 2.3, 3.5-inch screen and 2-megapixel camera won’t get anyone’s pulse racing, but a $100 contract-free price is hard to ignore — even for the sort who’d otherwise be looking for a just-does-calls flip phone. Accordingly, the carrier plans to put the Concord in front of audiences that would rarely care to set foot in a dedicated cellphone store. Walmart is selling the phone today for those comfortable with a Walmart Family Mobile plan. If you’d rather show fealty to T-Mobile itself, you’ll have to swing through a Target store on or after August 26th.

Continue reading ZTE-made Concord arrives at T-Mobile and Walmart, caters to the starter crowd at $100 contract-free

Filed under: Cellphones

ZTE-made Concord arrives at T-Mobile and Walmart, caters to the starter crowd at $100 contract-free originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was only hours ago when Nikon officially unveiled the Coolpix S800c, but we’ve already laid our hands on this eccentric device. As you’ve probably already heard, the main selling point here is that said “smart camera” is powered by a slick (and near-vanilla) Android 2.3.3 with Google services, so with the built-in WiFi, you can upload your 16-megapixel images or 1080p videos straight to your various social networks or other cloud services. Or you can, if you’re in the mood, just play Angry Birds on the S800c, but that 1,050mAh battery might not be ideal for prolonged entertainment. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to share any images taken with the demo units (sorry, usual Nikon protocol), but what we can tell you is that both the camera’s speed and quality weren’t bad at all, and likewise with the 3.5-inch 854 x 480 OLED multitouch display — the high pixel density makes the PenTile arrangement more forgivable.

The most interesting thing we discovered was that it seems the camera part of the S800c can run independently from Android while the latter is still booting up. You see, rather than letting the device stay on standby like most other Android devices, Nikon uses a shut-down timer that activates once Android goes on standby. When the camera’s completely switched off, hit the power button and you’ll go straight into camera mode which lets you shoot immediately, then about half a minute later the interface seamlessly goes back to smart mode, which is when you can hit the back or home button to toggle the Android unlock screen (though we’d rather go straight into the home screen). This cunning trick would probably explain why we couldn’t get any internal hardware detail from the few benchmark tools we installed, but we did squeeze out a score of 614 in Vellamo — detailed breakdown in the gallery below. Anyhow, you can see the camera in action in the video after the break.

The Nikon Coolpix S800c will be available next month for $350 in the US and £379 in the UK. As always, stay tuned for our review.

Update: Nikon’s released some sample shots. Take a look.

Continue reading Nikon Coolpix S800c hands-on: a closer look at the Android camera (video)

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Nikon Coolpix S800c hands-on: a closer look at the Android camera (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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