Hasta La Gadget!

Qualcomm’s certainly made a name for itself in the mobile chipset space, but the company’s past attempts at creating a fully baked consumer device have not been tremendously successful. Take FLO TV, for example. The pocketable television receiver had potential, but a botched execution left the firm with an embarrassing failure. It’s this legacy that leaves us cautiously optimistic about today’s product introduction, a full-function smartwatch called Toq.

Why is Qualcomm designing, marketing and selling a smartwatch, you ask? The answer lies in a troubled display tech called Mirasol. We got our first good look at this low-power color display technology at CES back in 2010. Since then, Mirasol has had a hard time catching on, with manufacturing costs a likely culprit. We’ve seen new iterations each year, mostly in the form of prototype e-readers, but a decision to shutter production last summer seemingly marked the final straw for the inventive concept. Then, we regained hope following this year’s SID Display Week, where two new high-res panels made their debut, including one in a smartwatch. Curiously, that wearable we saw in May bears little resemblance to the product we’re meeting today, which you’ll find detailed in full after the break.%Gallery-slideshow73561%

Filed under: Wearables

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Source: Qualcomm

Samsung already dominates the Android smartphone market; now, the new Galaxy Gear smartwatch wants to own your wrist. A companion to the new Galaxy Note 3 – and, initially, the Note 3 only – with a 1.63-inch, 320 x 320 Super AMOLED touchscreen, the Galaxy Gear squeezes a 1.9 megapixel autofocus camera with 720p HD […]

Two years ago, at a consumer electronics show in Berlin, Samsung took to the stage and unveiled the introduction to what is now a booming smartphone genre. The 5.3-inch monstrosity, called the Galaxy Note, has blossomed into one of the Korean manufacturer’s biggest brands. Today the same company is unveiling the Galaxy Note 3, the second sequel in a series of supersized stylus-smitten smartphones, which is even taller, narrower and thinner than the first two of its kind. As expected, the new 5.7-inch Note not only utilizes a S-Pen but enhances its functionality and adds better hardware and components to ensure it’s able to handle anything you can throw at it.

We had an opportunity to play with the black and white versions of the Note 3 here at IFA 2013 and while it was largely the same user experience we’ve grown accustomed to with previous Notes, Samsung still found a few clever ways to tweak both hardware and software to make it more appealing to consumers. Let’s take a much closer look at the whole package after the break, but first enjoy a full gallery of images and a lengthy preview video that shows off many of the device’s new offerings.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Wrist watches, smart or otherwise, are simply not for everyone — there are more smartphone users in the world, many times over, than there will ever be smartwatch owners. Despite the limited market for such a device, however, Samsung’s decided it’s time to join in on the fun. The Galaxy Gear, as we’ve known it to be called for a few weeks now, was hardly guarded with a level of secrecy that’s become standard for a flagship smartphone, but as the device is finally official — and expected to launch in more than 100 countries within weeks — just how does it perform? Find our take after the break.

Filed under: Wearables, Mobile, Samsung

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The Xperia Z1 was clearly the darling of today’s Sony press event at IFA, but what is a smartphone without a smart imaging stand, right? The peripheral only got a quick mention as Kaz ran through phone specs, but we managed to get a bit more time with it on the floor afterward. The device is a cradle for your handset that you can control via phone, tablet or, in this case, the company’s new SmartWatch 2. That’s what Sony was using at the event — though, we have to say, while we appreciated it killing two birds with one stone, maybe it wasn’t the ideal choice.

Tap the icon on the watch’s display and you’ll see a barebones interface. At the center is a camera icon for still photos, with a video record icon in the upper right. There are also four arrows around the perimeter that let you adjust the stand’s position. We had some serious trouble with the latter. Connected with the stand via Blueooth, we found ourselves having to hit the arrows multiple times to get it to move. When we did eventually get it to shift, the whole stand moved a bit — though we’re willing to chalk some of that up to the somewhat precarious position the stand was in while on display.%Gallery-slideshow79438%

Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile

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