Hasta La Gadget!

It’s Berlin and it’s Sony: that should be enough to whet the ol’ curiosity. We’re here live at the Sony IFA 2009 press event hoping to get a glimpse at Sony’s European, nay, global strategy from this day forward. Good thing for us, Sony has given us permission to blog on its WiFi network. Yay!

Continue reading Live from Sony IFA 2009 press event

Live from Sony IFA 2009 press event originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that Gateway QX2800 we peeked back in July? Looks like Acer’s finally issuing its own version of the nettop here at IFA with the introduction of the Aspire Revo 3600. Design wise, everything is pretty much the same as on the original AspireRevo, with the major differences coming on the inside. Rather than packing a paltry 1.6GHz Atom 230, Acer has outfitted this bugger with a dual-core Atom 330, NVIDIA’s Ion graphics technology, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, an HDMI socket and VESA mount compatibility. There’s no word on an expected price, release date or OS, but we’re hoping to get our mitts on the unit itself as well as those missing details when Berlin opens its doors to tech lovers across the globe here in just a few hours.

Filed under: Desktops

Acer’s Ion-powered Aspire Revo 3600 packs dual-core Atom 330 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And so it goes. In similar fashion to the psion “netbook” debacle, the German entity of Qualcomm was just hit with a restraining order for its use of the term “smartbook” as followup to the smackdown issued on a German blogging site over the weekend. The preliminary injunction issued by a German court comes at the request of Germany-based Smartbook AG that claims it is being confronted with an “absurd” and “bold attack” on its brand name. The decision calls for a €250,000 fine in case of non-compliance with risk of arrest for contempt. Really Smartbook AG, arrest? We imagine a number of vendors are frantically scribbling out the term “smartbook” from its placards that will be on display at the big IFA show in Berlin later this week.

Filed under: Laptops

Qualcomm forbidden to use “smartbook” by order of German court originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG bared the fruits of its OLED labor last week with a new set of photos of its gorgeous 15-inch screen, and now comes word from Reuters that it’s gearing up to become consumer reality. The company will be showing off the model at next week’s IFA trade show, and then expects to start selling it in Korea this November, followed by overseas sometime next year. Excited? You bet. Affordable? Price unknown, with Sony’s two-year old 11-inch XEL-1 still retailing for $2,500 in the US — and worse elsewhere — you can expect to be sacrificing a pretty penny for small-screen bliss. LG also plans to show off a 40-inch OLED in the “not too distant future,” but don’t expect to be seeing that hit retail shelves for a good long time to come.

[Via OLED-Info]

Filed under: HDTV

LG’s 15-inch OLED TV on sale in Korea this November, overseas in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Garmin already had a little fun at CeBIT this year, but it looks as if the PND maker is gearing up for quite a thrilling IFA, too. For starters, we’ve confirmed that the nüvi 1690 you’ve seen floating about is legitimate, and if Garmin prices those connected services right (read: gives them away), it stands a chance of being a real winner. Slated to launch on September 3rd just as IFA kicks off, the 1690 will pack a 4.3-inch WVGA display, North American maps, text-to-speech, Bluetooth handsfree support and EDGE data for pulling down weather, flight statuses, fuel prices, movie times, traffic and Google-powered local search results. It should be available at the tail end of Q3 for $499.99, though there’s no word on how pricey the connected services will be.

If you’re looking for even bigger and better things, there’s the nüvi 1800 family. The nüvi 1820 checks in with a 4.8-inch WVGA panel, a Linux-based OS, Bluetooth handsfree support, WiFi, lane assist, a traffic receiver, text-to-speech and a few features not found on your common PND. We’re talking about a full-fledged web browser (with YouTube support), multimedia player, access to email, internet radio streaming and even video streaming. Of course, you’ll have to provide the web access, but if you’ve got a MiFi or the like riding shotgun in your ride, you can keep this bad boy connected throughout the trip. Also of note, the nüvi 1860 packs all of the aforementioned goodies but throws in a 3 megapixel camera with geotagging for good measure. Garmin doesn’t bother to mention pricing details on either of the 18xx units, but we get the impression that both will sticker for well over the $500 mark.

Update: That $500 sticker on the 1690 will include two years of connected services — not perfect, but a solid gesture nonetheless.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Filed under: Digital Cameras, GPS

Garmin’s connected nuvi 1690 and browser / camera-equipped nuvi 1860 leak out originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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