Hasta La Gadget!

Fighter pilots and Google Glass owners: Garmin is channeling a little of both with its latest navigation accessory, the Garmin HUD, and we took some time to peer through the head-up display while at IFA 2013. The Bluetooth peripheral is designed to sit on your dashboard and project simple guidance and directions to drivers using […]

The G in Huawei’s letter-based lineup is meant to be midrange at best, so it’s no surprise that the Ascend G700 hasn’t been the subject of as much eager anticipation as, say, a certain new Nexus. Still, the device, which was announced this week and expected to arrive in China next month, was deemed worthy enough to be seen by thousands of onlookers in the company’s booth at IFA 2013. The Android 4.2 smartphone features Huawei’s Emotion UI, dual-SIM support, a 720p IPS display, 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek Cortex-A7 SoC, 2GB RAM, 8MP rear camera and 1.3MP front-facing shooter. In our brief time with the device, we liked the overall feel of the 5-inch phone; its arched smooth plastic back, which maxes out at 9mm thick, was adequately comfortable to hold. It’s a midrange phone through and through, which means you’re going to get a lot of decent performance with — you guessed it — decent specs. It’s a sleek device, so hopefully the price is right (though phones in this series rarely if ever go above ¥2,000 or about $320 unsubsidized). Check out some more images of Huawei’s latest below.

%Gallery-slideshow83354%

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Comments

Connected car concepts are nothing new, but a compelling one stands out among the crowd of half-baked ideas. Here at IFA, Deutsche Telekom’s demo is one such example, thanks to its simple but intuitive execution and downright usefulness. A very friendly Telekom rep let us step inside to check out the concept from a child’s perspective.

Set up in a BMW (naturally), the system utilizes an LTE hotspot, a few backseat-mounted iPads and BMW’s ConnectedDrive service to provide entertainment on long car trips. Kids sitting in the backseat navigate to their personal profiles on Telekom’s associated app, and from there they can access services such as Videoload, Maxdome (both for renting movies) and Audiobooks. There’s also the option to view real-time trip progress via Google Maps, and kids can even select a webcam mode to see the road from mom or dad’s perspective.

%Gallery-slideshow83273%

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

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless, T-Mobile

Comments

E Ink — the tech behind a large number of e-readers on the market today — is starting to make its way onto smartphones. We’ve seen it on reference phones as well as devices like the YotaPhone and even the iPhone and Galaxy Note II (in the form of a case), and now a largely unknown company is rather unexpectedly seeking to harness E Ink tech for its latest flagship. That manufacturer, interestingly enough, is Alcatel OneTouch. Taking advantage of the magnetic docking ports on the back of the brand new 6-inch Hero, the company has designed a prototype flip cover with an E Ink screen on top. This offers the obvious functionality of reading e-books in traditional fashion without having the display drain massive amounts of power, but as you can see in the image above, its engineers are exploring other use cases such as a full lock screen with a dynamically changing weather widget, and we figure the sky’s the limit. While press releases seemed to indicate that the accessory will see the light of day, company reps told us that it is still just a prototype and they’re not certain if it will make it out to the market. Whatever may happen down the road, it’s great to see E Ink coming alive on smartphones in different ways. Check out our gallery and a brief video below.

%Gallery-slideshow79660%

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

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Comments

Later this morning, Verizon will open its virtual doors to early Samsung Galaxy Note 3 adopters wanting to pre-order the new flagship device announced two days ago. AT&T wants to do one better, however, by flipping the switch right now. Starting at 12:01am ET, the GSM network will give you the opportunity to commit $300 of your hard-earned money and two years of your life — or $35 per month if you plan to use AT&T Next, which effectively translates into an off-contract cost of $700, by our calculations — to have the large smartphone shipped to your doorstep “around October 1st.” So yes, this means the final date is more of a flexible guideline than a rule at this point, though we’re holding out hope that this estimate is conservative and will actually arrive sooner rather than later, in the same manner in which the pizza place quotes you when you call for delivery.

The network also confirms that the Galaxy Gear is on its way as well, though it only gets as specific as “the coming weeks.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung, Google, AT&T

Comments