Hasta La Gadget!

If the Droid Charge has you thinking that Verizon LTE phones have to cost an arm, a leg, and an extra $100, you’ll want to take a look at this. Amazon Wireless is chopping the Thunderbolt, Verizon’s original 4G bad boy, down to the extremely palatable price of $130 on contract, valid for new Verizon subscribers who buy the phone between now and midnight Pacific Time on Monday. The 4.3-inch, Android 2.2 smartphone from HTC impressed us greatly with the 4G speeds it was able to pull down in our review, and while those might not remain quite so spectacular once that network starts loading up more customers, a price like the present one makes it an excellent proposition in the short term. The source link is where you’ll find it.

HTC Thunderbolt drops to $130 for new Verizon customers at Amazon over the weekend originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s only been a few weeks since the Optimus 2X crossed the desk of our European review bureau as the first known dual-core smartphone in the universe. Now LG’s wunderkind has made its way across the pond and landed on US soil to be reborn as the G2x on T-Mobile. While the hardware remains the same elegant Tegra 2-infused slab of glass, metal and plastic, the software has been liberated from the shackles of LG’s UI customizations into a serving of vanilla Froyo — the exact same approach T-Mobile took when it introduced the Desire Z as the G2 without HTC’s custom Sense skin last fall. Unlike previous G-series phones, the G2x ditches the physical keyboard for a 4-inch WVGA display with HDMI output and an 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video capture. Beyond the transition from messaging-centric device to multimedia powerhouse, what else is different about the hardware? Is plain Android a vast improvement over the lackluster software that shipped on the Optimus 2X? How does the G2x fare against T-Mobile’s current flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G? Find out in our full review after the break.

Continue reading T-Mobile G2x review

T-Mobile G2x review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We saw this little guy back at CES in January and then last month heard it wouldn’t be long before it started retailing around the good old US of A. That day has now come, with Verizon officially kicking off sales of its first LTE MiFi device, the 4510L. It’s not cheap, at $100 on contract (with a $175 ETF, to boot) or $270 when bought by its lonesome. Still, if you can afford it, this Novatel-produced gadget will turn the nearest Verizon airwaves (4G or 3G, it can handle both) into familiar 802.11b, g or n WiFi signals, which your laptop, smartphone, tablet, or LAN rig can then gobble up with gay abandon. It’s capable of serving as a mobile hotspot for up to five devices at a time, and promised LTE speeds range between 5Mbps and 12Mbps on the downlink and 2Mbps to 5Mbps when uploading. Check out the press release after the break or the source link to get your own.

P.S. — Verizon has also tweeted a promise that it’ll be launching LTE service in “a mess of new cities and towns” on Thursday.

Continue reading Verizon brings out LTE-riding MiFi 4510L, asks for $100 on a two-year contract or $270 without

Verizon brings out LTE-riding MiFi 4510L, asks for $100 on a two-year contract or $270 without originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re waiting impatiently for the ability hook your laptop in to T-Mobile’s blazingly fast 42Mbps HSPA+ network, you are going to have hold tight just a little bit longer. But here’s some good news to tide you over: the 21Mbps capable Rocket 4G USB stick is here, and available starting April 17th with new prepaid data plans for those who prefer not to chain themselves to a two-year contract. The $30, 30-day plan will jump from 300MB to 1GB, and the $50 plan will be bumped from 1GB to 3GB. It’s not as flashy as the 4G Mobile Hotspot nor as fast as the 42Mbps Rocket 3.0, but it’s priced at a reasonable $59.99 — and controlling the destiny of your mobile broadband soul must be worth something.

T-Mobile blesses contract-averse with Rocket 4G modem and better data plans originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon may have left it out from the get-go, but it looks as if eager HTC Thunderbolt owners needn’t wait another day to test out a video-enabled version of Skype. For those outside of The Loop, there was quite the back-and-forth going during the early days, with Verizon announcing at the 11th hour that its flagship LTE phone would be shipped sans Skype. It’s still unavailable in the bona firde Android Market, but a build has appeared from the ether and seems to be humming along just fine here at Engadget HQ. Hit the source link if you’re feeling froggy, and let us know in comments how things work out.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: So we just happened to have a Thunderbolt on hand, and gave Skype’s mobile video chat a try. We came away quite impressed — video is as good as can be expected from the handset’s 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and the experience on WiFi and LTE is virtually indistinguishable. The app even worked on 3G, though that reduced the picture quality to the point of being almost unusable.

Michael Gorman contributed to this report.

Skype with video calling leaks for HTC Thunderbolt, celebrations unsurprisingly erupt (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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