Hasta La Gadget!

The PlayStation Phone. We’ve had quite the intimate history with this gamepad-equipped slider, learning of its secretive existence way back in August and then handling a prototype unit in January, so you’ll forgive us for feeling sentimental and still entertaining our pet name for it. The Sony Ericsson marketing gurus renamed it the Xperia Play when it finally went official at MWC this year, but the PlayStation connection remains as strong as ever. Aside from the D-pad, iconic game keys, and two touchpads, this device comes with a little app named PlayStation Pocket, which will be serving up dollops of classic PlayStation One gaming to all those with a taste for it. Yes, the Sony influence is strong with this one, and the Android Market will be joining the fun with Xperia Play-optimized titles from third-party developers. So all we really need to know now is whether the Android smartphone underpinning this smash-bang fusion of old and new school entertainment happens to be any good. Shall we get Started?

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan’s NTT DOCOMO just announced a March 31st retail offering of LG’s Optimus Pad. The Honeycomb tablet listed as model L-06C is the same 8.9-inch 1280 x 768 pixel slab known as the G-Slate ’round T-Mobile subscribers. Besides its 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor and internationally compatible 3G data and GPS, the Optimus Pad’s most noteworthy features are the stereoscopic rear-facing video cameras capable of 1080p 3D capture which can viewed directly on the L-06C with a pair of passive glasses. Unfortunately, NTT DOCOMO is mum on pricing. Remember, although T-Mobile originally hedged with a spring launch (recently rumored for April 20th), LG told us that it’d be arriving on US soil in March. So… T-Mobile, anything you’d like to add before Thursday?

LG’s 3D-shooting Optimus Pad nabs March 31st retail date in Japan as T-Mobile fiddles originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 03:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, here’s a bit of a twist — a concept device designed to actually a fund a Kickstarter-like service for concept devices. While that may not exactly inspire the most confidence, these concepts from the folks behind upstart Makible are certainly unique enough to get us interested. They included the standard headphone adapter pictured above, which promises to turn any set of headphones into a proper (and eye-catching) headset, as well as an iPhone headset adapter that will let you use any iPhone headset with your Android phone (check it out after the break). Both will apparently be limited to 10,000 units apiece assuming they get the necessary funding, with the headphone adapter setting you back $20, while the iPhone version runs just $10. Want to see them become a reality? Then you can hit up the link below to get your order in.

Continue reading Android adapter concepts promise to accessorize any headset

Android adapter concepts promise to accessorize any headset originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

When Apple introduced the iPad, it had but a smattering of third-party applications, but the company stressed its own. As Apple iPhone software SVP Scott Forstall stated in the iPad introduction video, “We looked at the device and we decided: let’s redesign it all. Let’s redesign, reimagine and rebuild every single app from the ground up specifically for the iPad.”

Compare this to the strategy employed by RIM, makers of the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. One year after the iPad’s debut, Apple’s head start in apps has proven a formidable advantage against the onslaught of slates announced by its competitors in the smartphone world. Some have chosen to latch onto Android and attain backwards compatibility with over 200,000 existing smartphone apps. HP, with its TouchPad as flagship, will circle its wagons of PCs, printers and phones around the webOS platform. However, the announcement this week that RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook will support Android apps says much about how the company sees its position in the tablet wars.

Continue reading Switched On: The PlayBook polyglot

Switched On: The PlayBook polyglot originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Amazon’s Appstore rolled out last week, we glossed over one detail that merely seemed neat. Today, we’re inclined to say that Test Drive may be the most significant part of Amazon’s announcement that day. Basically, Test Drive allows US customers to take apps for a spin at Amazon.com, with all the comfort that their tried-and-true desktop web browser brings — but rather than sit you down with a Flash-based mockup of the app, Amazon is giving you a taste of bona fide cloud computing with an Android virtual machine.

In other words, what you’re looking at in the screenshot above isn’t just a single program, but an entire virtual Android smartphone with working mouse controls, where you can not only try out Paper Toss, but also delete it, browse through the device’s photo gallery, listen to a few tunes, or even surf the web from the working Android browser — as difficult as that may be without keyboard input. Amazon explains:

Clicking the “Test drive now” button launches a copy of this app on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a web service that provides on-demand compute capacity in the cloud for developers. When you click on the simulated phone using your mouse, we send those inputs over the Internet to the app running on Amazon EC2 – just like your mobile device would send a finger tap to the app. Our servers then send the video and audio output from the app back to your computer. All this happens in real time, allowing you to explore the features of the app as if it were running on your mobile device.

Today, Amazon’s Test Drive is basically just Gaikai for mobile phones — its purpose is simply to sell apps, nothing more. But imagine this for a sec: what if you could access your own smartphone data, instead of the mostly blank slate that Amazon provides here?

[Thanks, Ryan]

Amazon.com lets you play with an Android virtual machine, try apps before you buy them originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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