Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like Toshiba’s dipping its toes a little bit deeper into that pool known as WiMAX-ready laptops. In addition to the previously-announced Satellite U405, we’ve now got a quartet of older models with a new 4G flair: Satellite E205, M645 and A665, and Protege R705. All have prices starting between $760 and $1,080 and will hit retail around September 26th. Just make sure you double-check the laptop you’re picking up is the newer version with the right antennas. All the additional info you seek can be found in the press release after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba outs new 4G WiMAX-ready laptops

Toshiba outs new 4G WiMAX-ready laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 02:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint and Clearwire’s WiMAX service has been making occasional cameos throughout the five boroughs since at least June, but now it’s official: the service has been launched, closing up one of the most conspicuous holes in coverage so far. This matches up nicely with the San Francisco go-live we reported on earlier today, so you’ll now be able to take your red eye from the Big Apple to the City by the Bay without fear that your EVO’s going to get slow when you go wheels-down. Plans run from $25 a month (for the iSpot) all the way up to $55 for a mixed-mode WiMAX and EV-DO data stick, which works out to somewhere between 0.00001 and 0.0003 percent of your housing costs in Manhattan. Glass is half full, y’know.

[Thanks, Marcus]

Update: We’ve just been contacted by Clear and told that New York’s still in the “operational readiness” phase of the go-live, which means hardware’s only being offered to customers in limited areas and not all hardware is available (notably, the iSpot isn’t yet being offered). Same goes for Los Angeles. San Francisco, meanwhile, isn’t yet there — we’re told there might be some limited pockets where service is showing up, but Clear hasn’t commercially launched there, even on a limited scale. For what it’s worth, all of these areas are still expected to go fully live in 2010, they’re just not quite there yet.

Clear WiMAX is live in New York City (updated: semi-live) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How would you like a “full-tilt” wireless experience? Sound good? That’s what Verizon’s touting (among other things) at a teaser page it has launched for its upcoming LTE-based network… but in terms of cold, hard facts, you shouldn’t expect much. Dates, launch markets, and hardware all remain a bit of a mystery, but they’re happy to take down your email address in exchange for a promise that you’ll get the news just as soon as they’re ready to lay it out there. Of course, we like to think you’re better off just reading Engadget for that sort of information — but we can’t blame ’em for trying.

Verizon sets up teaser page for 4G service originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We already knew Verizon was planning to hit one third of the country with LTE this year with plans to expand dramatically after that, but things are starting to come into sharper focus: the carrier today said that it’ll light up 30 “NFL cities” with 4G by the end of the year. Now, there’s only 32 teams, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where that’s going to be — and considering the plan is to hit “major metropolitan areas,” we’ll go ahead and guess Green Bay isn’t on the list, even though the Packers are by far the best team in the league. (Buffalo and Jacksonville also spring to mind — and let’s not forget that the NFL still isn’t in LA, despite Ari Gold’s best fictional efforts on Entourage.) The plan is to first upgrade each cell site’s backhaul connection to Gigabit Ethernet so they’ll have the necessary bandwidth to support the 5-12Mbps down and 2-5Mbps up speeds with 30-150ms latency promised for Big Red’s LTE network at launch. Ambitious, but hey — we’d love nothing more than to be streaming the Super Bowl over LTE when all’s said and done.

Update: As many of our beloved commenters have pointed out, there are technically only 30 NFL markets, as New York has the Giants and Jets and the Raiders and 49ers play across the bay from each other. LTE for everyone, then? We’ll have to wait and see — and we’ve got a feeling a few Oakland residents might take offense at being lumped in with their neighbors across the bridge.

Verizon to light up LTE network in 30 ‘NFL cities’ this year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, we thought netbooks were old news too, but if they all start strapping up with the latest in 4G connectivity, we might have to give them another look. The Samsung N350 is just such a machine, with dual-mode LTE and HSPA+ built in. You won’t be surprised that almost everything else is par for the affordable laptop market course: a dual-core Atom N550 CPU, that boilerplate 1,024 x 600 resolution on a 10.1-inch matte screen, 250GB of storage, 1GB of DDR3 RAM, a multicard reader, and a trifecta of USB ports. The basic wireless options are keeping up with modernity, however, with 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 on board, both of which are nice to see. The 3-cell battery should last up to 6.7 hours and the whole package is expected to retail for €429 ($553) in Germany this autumn. You can probably expect a rebadge under the Go label for the US and a relatively swift launch over here as well.

Continue reading Samsung N350 throws LTE and HSPA+ into an intriguing new netbook proposition

Samsung N350 throws LTE and HSPA+ into an intriguing new netbook proposition originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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