Hasta La Gadget!

Pre-recorded from Berlin, it’s the Engadget Partycast: IFA 2013 edition. For your listening pleasure, we’ve got Dan from the Eurocast and Brad from the Mobile Podcast joining Brian and Dana. Stream it below to hear about their favorite picks from the show and Dana’s run-in with some wild boars.

Hosts: Brian Heater, Dan Cooper, Dana Wollman, Brad Molen

Producer: Joe Pollicino

Hear the podcast:

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“I’ve worked for Sennheiser since I was born,” the company’s co-CEO says with a laugh. Five years ago, Daniel Sennheiser and his brother took over the reigns of the eponymous audio company, the third generation of a legacy that began in 1945, weeks after the close of World War II, when their grandfather Fritz opened Laboratorium Wennebostel. Two decades later, the company would go on to to revolutionize personal audio with the introduction of the open headphone.

“One of our engineers discovered that you can take a microphone transducer and put it close to your head and suddenly there’s a near-field effect that creates very good sound quality,” explains Sennheiser. “And suddenly the open-ear headphone was born. That was the first hi-fi headphone in the world. That didn’t exist at the time. We had 100-percent of the market.” A quick glance around the floor of IFA will confirm that’s certainly no longer the case anymore.

Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!

Filed under: Home Entertainment

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Sure, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 Kids broke cover late last month, but it’s joined the rest of the firm’s brand-new displays and gadgets at IFA. Relocated capacitive buttons and repositioned camera aside, the child-friendly pad’s internals are identical to the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0: a 7-inch 1,024 x 600 display, dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 8GB of storage accompanied by a microSD slot, 4,000mAh battery, 3MP front cam and a 1.3MP rear-facing shooter. While the tablet felt sturdy enough to withstand light abuse on its own, an optional case packing a blue handle makes it more kid-proof. The shell isn’t there just for protection and portability either, as its handle houses a chubby stylus (no, not an S Pen) and folds to prop up the slate. If you’d rather give your tyke something a little less heavy-duty, a simple tangerine silicone case from the outfit helps the hardware endure additional rough treatment.

When it comes to performance, the pad handled itself admirably, jumping between apps and across pages without stuttering. As for software, the Galaxy Tab 3 Kids runs Android 4.1 and comes pre-loaded with apps for young ‘uns, which include games, a camera and a paint tool. While the package features an interface and app store just for the little ones, full-blown Android is just a few taps away. Pricing is still MIA, but it’s launching in Korea this month and is expected to follow suit in other regions afterward. Check out the gallery below to get better acquainted.%Gallery-slideshow83392%

Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!

Filed under: Tablets, Samsung

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Alcatel One Touch (that’s all part of the company’s full name, incidentally) clearly intended on making a big splash at this year’s IFA. The company announced a number of relatively high-end handsets in Berlin this week, including the flashy Idol Alpha and the massive Idol Hero. But let’s face it, not everyone is able to shell out big bucks for handsets. Thankfully, the company also used the show to take the wraps off of four new budget Android 4.2 entries in its C-Series of handsets. The company had three on-hand at tonight’s Pepcom event: the C1, C3 and C5. The biggest of the bunch, the five-inch C7 was here in spirit, making an appearance as a dummy unit. Thankfully, the company’s got a bit more time to perfect that one, seeing as how the handset isn’t due out until some time before the end of the year.

The C5, which is set to start shipping in November, was on-hand in all of its final production glory. All said, it’s not a bad looking piece of hardware. Granted, it loses a bit of its luster placed up against the likes of the Alpha and Hero, but again, this is a budget device we’re talking about here. The handset’s got a 4.5-inch display and a white face that’s at least somewhat reminiscent of Galaxy devices, with the usual trio of touch Android buttons on the bottom. The device we handled had a metallic red backing, with a prominent five-megapixel camera up top and a speaker grille along the bottom. Inside is a quad-core 1.3 GHz processor — a step down from the C7’s quad-core version.%Gallery-slideshow83371%

Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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We admittedly didn’t initially get the point of HP’s new “Recline” family of all-in-ones. Sure, we understood the concept well enough; these machines use a patent-pending hinge allowing the touchscreen to hang off the table, close to your lap. But we couldn’t understand why HP would opt for such a funky design, other than the fact that its research team concluded a good deal of people would prefer to use their desktops this way. (We’re skeptical of marketing departments, can’t you tell?) It turns out, a lap-screen is the sort of feature you really do want, even if you don’t know it yet.

Setting aside that onscreen piano example in the above photo — now that’s a gimmick — we found we had a much easier time interacting with IE and Maps app than we would have if the screen were upright. In part, that’s because having the 1080p display sitting lower and at that particular angle makes it easier to type on the onscreen keyboard, which in turn takes the pain out of entering URLs and search terms. Also, though, the lower the screen is, the more you’re likely to interact with it like a tablet — a very big tablet, but a tablet nonetheless. That means you might even find yourself using two hands at once, as opposed to reaching up occasionally to swipe with your finger. Our only gripe? There’s no physical Start button, so you’ll have to either swipe the Charms bar or pause to hit the shortcut on your keyboard. Not a big deal, but it does mean the tablet experience might not feel as seamless as what you’d expect from a proper slate. If we’ve convinced you to take a closer look, the Recline 23 and 27 are both available today, though if you’d rather have it with a red hinge (and even more Beats branding than usual) you’ll have to wait until November. %Gallery-slideshow83364%

Filed under: Desktops, HP

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