Hasta La Gadget!

And with that, it’s officially On Like Donkey Kong. A flood of tipsters have confirmed this morning that Best Buy stores around the nation are now accepting pre-orders for HTC’s titillating Thunderbolt. We knew good and well this day was coming, but if you’ve got $50 socked away to put towards it, today’s the day to get in line. We’re hearing from numerous stores that the phone will be available for pickup on February 14th, so feel free to pre-order two — you know, for that special someone in your life. Let us know how your experience goes in comments below.

Update: We’ve got it on good authority that new and upgrade pricing for this here handset is set at $249.99 with a two-year contract.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Best Buy opens up in-store pre-orders for HTC Thunderbolt: $50 to claim yours

Best Buy opens up in-store pre-orders for HTC Thunderbolt: $50 to claim yours originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 11:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This podcast is so disgusting that #1 Digitimes bestselling author Paul Miller wants to take a shower. JK, not disgusting at all! Lots of cool stuff, actually. Just look at that topics list! It’s a real beauty, right? We’re not sure we COULD fit any more platforms into a podcast if we tried. Hang out with it. It’s the Engadget Podcast, just the way you like it, with especially special guest Chris Ziegler.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Guest: Chris Ziegler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Sexy Chick

00:08:24 – Live from Google’s Android event!
00:08:37 – Android in-app purchases hands-on (video)
00:08:55 – Android Market gets a web store with OTA installations, in-app purchases coming soon
00:11:00 – Android Market web store hands-on
00:20:47 – Motorola Xoom first benchmark: 1823 in Quadrant
00:21:47 – Google shows off Fragments API for Android 3.0
00:25:00 – Motorola teases Xoom Super Bowl ad: ‘2011 looks a lot like 1984’
00:36:30 – Motorola’s Atrix 4G coming to AT&T on March 6th for $200, bundled with Laptop Dock for $500
00:51:35 – Verizon iPhone review
00:52:23 – Verizon can now throttle top five percent of bandwidth hogs, downres multimedia transfers
00:53:12 – Verizon breaks first day sales record with iPhone 4 pre-orders — in only two hours
01:01:43 – Nokia, Microsoft announcing partnership next week, possibly involving Windows Phone 7?
01:10:19 – Palm creating palmtop computer with detachable, dockable cellphone?
01:12:15 – HP CEO: New webOS products shipping weeks after February 9 reveal, another big announcement March 14
01:13:35 – Palm ‘Think Beyond’ teaser shows off glimpses of… something (updated with longer video)

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Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 231 – 02.05.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Feb 2011 15:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember when we all laughed about making calls on the 5-inch Streak? Those were the days. Now it looks as if some clever tweakers have discovered a hidden phone app in Dell’s 7-inch model… but beyond the shell of a presentation, there’s not much to it. According to Streak Smart, rotation is enabled, there’s a dedicated voicemail button, and calls will not seem to connect (which is, in this particular instance, seemingly unrelated to the carrier). See the frustration for yourself in the video after the break; not to worry, fans of holding giant slates up to the ear when talking to loved ones, someone somewhere will assuredly get this working at some point.

Continue reading Dell Streak 7 phone app discovered, so far is much ado about nothing (video)

Dell Streak 7 phone app discovered, so far is much ado about nothing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android is our future, the stat mavens all agree, but for all its rapid growth, Google’s OS still suffers from a shortage of top tier differentiation. This has in part been down to LG and Sony — two of the world’s biggest phone makers — spending the majority of 2010 watching the battle for Android supremacy from the sidelines (the X10 disqualified itself when it announced it neither knew nor cared what Froyo was). 2011 might just be the year of redemption for both, however, as LG will soon assault the European market with a pair of truly desirable and powerful Android smartphones in the Optimus 2X and Black, while Sony Ericsson’s well leaked portfolio of new Xperias includes the Arc, Neo and Play, each one of them coming with Gingerbread preloaded. We’ve wrapped our mitts around a pair of these high-hope devices, one from each manufacturer, and photographed the living daylights out of them sat side by side.

We humbly submit that the Xperia Arc looks and feels far more refined than LG’s admittedly well designed Optimus 2X. The Arc’s curvature seriously makes it feel like the thinnest phone we’ve ever handled and its weight is also dramatically, unreasonably minimal. Another note of import is that the 2X comes with a 4-inch screen whereas the Arc offers a more generous 4.2-inch display, yet their overall dimensions are nearly identical. All in all, we’d hardly object to having either one in our pockets, but the Arc wins it for us in terms of aesthetic appeal. Of course, the Optimus 2X has a dual-core Tegra 2 heart beating within, it’s not all about looks, though in the case of this hands-on comparison, it kind of was. We’ll have a full review of LG’s handset in the coming days, while Sony Ericsson promises the Xperia Arc will land in Europe by the end of March. You can see more of the prototype unit we got to handle in the gallery below and there’s a video comparison of the two Android newcomers after the break as well.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc vs. LG Optimus 2X… fight!

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc vs. LG Optimus 2X… fight! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Getting ready for the Super Bowl XLV? Then download all these free apps into your iPhone or Android (if available). Because, you know, there’s never enough apps to feed our hyperactive, hyperinformationhungry brains and satisfy our short attention spans. More »