Sony Xperia Play hits the UK on March 31st, thumbsticks coming never

Sony Xperia Play hits the UK on March 31st, thumbsticks coming never

Readers in the British Empire get ready for Sony Ericsson‘s biggest UK marketing campaign ever. That’s in the lead-up to the release of the Xperia Play, a phone that we’ve been hearing about for so long that we’d need some pretty shocking commercials to get us all excited again. You may feel differently, though, so mark your calendars for March 31st. That’s the end of the month and falls in nicely with the “late March” word we’d heard for elsewhere in the world, though that is awfully late. As to where you can buy it, it’s said that “all the mobile operators and retailers” will have it, so you shouldn’t have to wander too far. And, with six games pre-installed, you should even be reasonably well equipped to kill the rest of that Thursday.

Sony Xperia Play hits the UK on March 31st, thumbsticks coming never originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Flash 10.2 beta hits Android Market on March 18th, supports Honeycomb, Gingerbread and Froyo (update)

Contrary to reports floating about the web, the Motorola Xoom isn’t getting Adobe Flash Player 10.2 today — rather, the tablet is getting updated to support Flash, which will actually arrive in one week. Adobe now says that Flash Player 10.2 will be ready to download from the Android Market on March 18th, supporting only Honeycomb tablets (in other words, just the Xoom) to start, and will eventually be available for Android 2.2 smartphones — again, contrary to what we’d been told, but we can’t really complain on that count supporting Android 2.2 (Froyo), Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and a beta version for Android 3.0.1 (Honeycomb) at release. Froyo devices won’t get the full battery-friendly Stage Video rendering pipeline and deep browser integration like their Honeycomb tablet brethren, but dual-core phones will reportedly see a performance improvement nonetheless, and there’s a new tweak that’ll let Flash web apps pull up a virtual keyboard if needed for full functionality. PR after the break.

Update: Adobe contacted us to clarify that Flash 10.2 is, in fact, headed to all three of the most recent versions of Android on March 18th — the Honeycomb tablet version will simply sport a beta label, and the smartphone builds will lack full functionality as described above.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Flash 10.2 beta hits Android Market on March 18th, supports Honeycomb, Gingerbread and Froyo (update)

Flash 10.2 beta hits Android Market on March 18th, supports Honeycomb, Gingerbread and Froyo (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read it Later Pro hits Android, we go hands-on

We’ve all been there, cruising through some news in a browser only to think “Man, I don’t have time for this whole article.” At that point you have two options: type “tl;dr” in the article’s comments and smugly move on with your life, or call upon one of the many services that let you cache content for later perusal. Read it Later Pro is one of the more popular ones and, with support for a flurry of platforms, it makes it easy to start reading one thing at one place and later pick up that thing at some other place. With the release of an Android version you now have even more places at your disposal. We pulled this $.99 new addition from the Android Market and gave it a spin.

Continue reading Read it Later Pro hits Android, we go hands-on

Read it Later Pro hits Android, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation Suite coming to Tegra 2 devices

NVIDIA’s Tegra Zone app, freshly launched this month, has become the source for a nifty little bit of Sony-related news: the PS Suite that is currently slated to deliver PlayStation One games to the Xperia Play is coming to Tegra 2 devices. Of course, if you’re keeping up with your Sony tablet exclusives, you’d already know that the company’s expected to unveil a Tegra 2 slate this year, so don’t go assuming that your Xoom will necessarily get the PlayStation Certified badge. On a separate note, we’re also hearing this expansion of supported hardware will be followed up with the eventual addition of PlayStation 2 games to the Suite. Those are clearly not on the immediate horizon and we suspect Sony might be waiting for quad-core mobile chips — such as the one within its upcoming NGP — to hit the market before rolling the last-gen console’s wares out to pockets and messenger bags across the world.

[Thanks, Onno]

Update: Upon further investigation, we’ve been unable to confirm the claim about PS2 games being on Sony’s PS Suite roadmap. Android and Me reports it to have come from NVIDIA, but the original Tegra Zone post makes no reference to PS2 games. We’ve updated the post to reflect this.

PlayStation Suite coming to Tegra 2 devices originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy knocks Nexus S down to $100 on contract for two weeks only

Had your eyes on a Nexus S but still haven’t taken the plunge? Then it looks like that indecisiveness has finally paid off, as Best Buy has now knocked a full $100 off the phone for a limited time if you’re signing up for a contract. That’s from today until March 23rd, to be precise, and it seems that your local Best Buy doesn’t even need to be a T-Mobile dealer for you to get the deal — you’ll just have to get the phone shipped to you. Hit up the link below for all the details.

[Thanks, Kevin]

Best Buy knocks Nexus S down to $100 on contract for two weeks only originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy knocks Nexus S down to $100 for two weeks only

Had your eyes on a Nexus S but still haven’t taken the plunge? Then it looks like that indecisiveness has finally paid off, as Best Buy has now knocked a full $100 off the phone for a limited time. That’s from today until March 23rd, to be precise, and it seems that your local Best Buy doesn’t even need to be a T-Mobile dealer for you to get the deal — you’ll just have to get the phone shipped to you. Hit up the link below for all the details.

[Thanks, Kevin]

Best Buy knocks Nexus S down to $100 for two weeks only originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy S 4G review

It’s only been six months since Samsung launched its highly successful Galaxy S assault upon the US market with a series of carrier customized phones: the Vibrant and Captivate GSM twins for T-Mobile and AT&T, the WiMAX-rocking Epic 4G for Sprint and the Fascinate for Verizon. More derivatives arrived later, with the Mesmerize, Continuum, Nexus S, and LTE-equipped Galaxy Indulge. Still the Vibrant was the first, and the closest in appearance to the original Galaxy S, losing the front-facing camera, but gaining a search button. Unfortunately, Samsung was slow to upgrade early devices like the Vibrant beyond Eclair, and to fix the well-documented AGPS problems. As such, the release of the Samsung Galaxy S 4G for T-Mobile — basically an updated Vibrant with HSPA+, a front-facing camera, a bronze battery cover, Froyo out of the gate, but no dedicated internal flash storage — is bittersweet. While beneficial to those who waited, it’s a slap in the face to those who purchased the Vibrant. But is it a worthy upgrade? How does it fit into T-Mobile’s high-end Android lineup? Read on for our full review after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S 4G review

Samsung Galaxy S 4G review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPad gets Flash yet again with iSwifter app, Android version coming soon (hands-on)

Ever since Skyfire brought Flash to the iPad with its server-side solution, we’ve had a feeling that others would try to emulate the experience and satisfy the general public’s desire for the venerable format on Apple’s tablet. iSwifter is another entrant to the space, and its app claims to allow access to any Flash content on the web — a lofty claim indeed. Oh, and did we mention it’s coming to Android versions above 2.2 as well? We’ve given the iPad app a brief rundown, so head past the break for a breakdown of the positives and negatives.

Continue reading iPad gets Flash yet again with iSwifter app, Android version coming soon (hands-on)

iPad gets Flash yet again with iSwifter app, Android version coming soon (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olivetti Olipad 100 gets unboxed and handled in italiano (video)

Olivetti Olipad 100 gets unboxed and handled in italiano (video)

If the extent of your mastery of the Italian language entails adding an unnecessary “a” after every other word and gesticulating with your hands, like Jen in that episode of The I.T. Crowd, you may not get a lot from the nine minute and 39 second video below. Still, it’s worth at least a quick look. It’s an unboxing and hands-on of the Olivetti Olipad 100, including an extensive display of the customized interface that sits atop Android and, honestly, doesn’t look half bad. Performance, driven by an ARM Cortex A9, looks quite good on this €394 tablet, which works out to about $550. For the rest of the detailed impressions you’ll have to drop your former pen-pal in Florence a line and see if she can translate for you, then you can lament about how you just can’t get good carbonara in the States.

Update: Sasha was kind enough to provide a translation. It’s after the break!

Continue reading Olivetti Olipad 100 gets unboxed and handled in italiano (video)

Olivetti Olipad 100 gets unboxed and handled in italiano (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OpenFeint and The9 will stimulate devs to port their games to Android with cold hard cash

Are you a developer seeking the widest and most profitable distribution for your mobile software? The traditional platform for achieving such goals over the past couple of years has been Apple’s iOS, but Android’s rabid ascendancy has recently turned that into a legitimate question. A question that OpenFeint is looking to sway even further in Google’s favor by announcing it will fund the porting of games from “other app stores” to Android with the help of Chinese online game operator The9. The specially selected games will of course get saddled with OpenFeint integration and the whole effort does have the waft of a publicity grab to us, but hey, it’s another few pennies thrown into the bottomless well known as “Android gaming.” Surely something worthy will eventually come out of it, no?

[Thanks, Calvin]

Continue reading OpenFeint and The9 will stimulate devs to port their games to Android with cold hard cash

OpenFeint and The9 will stimulate devs to port their games to Android with cold hard cash originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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