Hasta La Gadget!

HTC’s slogan is “quietly brilliant,” and the company’s living up to it right now — it snuck new details about its mystery handset directly under our nose. What you see above are three screencaps from a banner ad running on the pages of Engadget even as we speak, hinting at an 8 megapixel imager, a sizable screen, and perhaps even 4G video chat. Why, hello there HTC Thunderbolt / Mecha / Droid Incredible HD, and hurray for controlled leaks!

[Thanks, Taylor S.]

HTC Thunderbolt has 8 megapixel camera and video chat, according to the ad up there originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Teasing tablets ahead of the CES deluge is nothing new for manufacturers now, but we’ll at least give Vizio a few style points for its expensive approach to the tactic. That’s because what looks like a Vizio-branded tablet made a not-so-secret appearance during the Rose Bowl. Specifically, the device appeared about 15 seconds into the chairman’s message in the hands of Vizio chief sales officer Randy Waynick. Just in case a mere sighting was too subtle, Waynick was also kind enough to mention Vizio’s dedication to “entertainment freedom for all” and the ability to view content on “any of their great new products, from anywhere” — wink wink, nudge nudge. Details on the gadget are obviously unknown, but we’re confident the actual specs (if any) will emerge next week. We’re also pretty positive it’s not Vizio’s 7-inch razor portable TV. If you weren’t watching the game, check out a video of the device’s brief cameo on national television after the break.

Update: We originally speculated that this tablet was probably running Android based on the buttons. Some eagle-eyed readers have pointed out though that only three buttons are visible at the bottom of the Vizio screen — which means WP 7 could also be a possibility. It’s worth noting too that no traditional Android buttons were visible on the prototype Motorola Honeycomb Tablet. The bottom line is we can’t make a ruling on the OS based solely on the buttons.

Continue reading Vizio teases entry into the tablet fray with pizazz via Rose Bowl spot (video)

Vizio teases entry into the tablet fray with pizazz via Rose Bowl spot (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 01:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So what if nobody has bothered to announce it yet? Sprint’s upcoming EVO Shift 4G Android handset has turned up on Amazon’s wireless outlet, albeit with the EVO‘s spec sheet. We were getting excited about an 8 megapixel camera with HD video capture and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing imager until we realized those specs probably didn’t belong to the EVO Shift 4G — thanks to a note describing this phone as having been “released in June, 2010.” The product title is unequivocal, however, and offers you the EVO Shift 4G slider, to have and to hold, for $200 on a two-year contract. Clearly someone’s got his or her EVOs mixed up and has HTC’s second 4G cat for the Sprint network out of the bag a little early.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Update: The product image is user-submitted so we can probably disregard it. Still, Amazon’s got HTC’s unannounced phone up on its site, giving us the closest to official confirmation we’ve had yet.

HTC EVO Shift 4G nonchalantly shows up for Amazon pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pardon us if the headline is a little sensational, but this is one that we’ve personally experienced — and it’s not pretty. For at least the last couple versions, Android has been plagued with a couple extremely serious bugs in its text messaging subsystem that can ultimately end up causing you to text the wrong contact — even contacts that you’ve never texted before. There appear to be a few failure modes; the one we definitely experience on the Gingerbread-powered Nexus S involves being routed to the wrong thread when you tap it either in the Notifications list or the master thread list in the Messaging application, so if you don’t notice, you’ll end up firing a message to the wrong person.

More seriously, though, there’s also an open issue in Android’s bug tracking system — inexplicably marked “medium” priority — where sent text messages can appear to be in the correct thread and still end up being sent to another contact altogether. In other words, unless you pull up the Message Details screen after the fact, you might not even know the grievous act you’ve committed until your boss, significant other, or best friend — make that former best friend — texts you back. There seem to have been some attempts on Google’s part over the year to fix it; we can’t confirm that it still happens in 2.3, but for what it’s worth, the issue hasn’t been marked resolved in Google Code… and it was opened some six months ago.

This is akin to an alarm clock that occasionally won’t go off (we’ve been there) or a car that randomly won’t let you turn the steering wheel — you simply cannot have a phone that you can’t trust to communicate with the right people. It’s a deal-breaker. We’re pretty shocked that these issues weren’t tied up and blasted to all affected phones as an over-the-air patch months ago, but whatever the reason, we’d like to see Google, manufacturers, and carriers drop every other Android update they’re working on and make sure this is completely resolved immediately.

Want to see this fixed as much as we do? Scroll to the bottom of the Google Code page and hit “Vote for this issue and get email change notifications.”

Android still has horrible text messaging bugs that’ll get you fired, busted, or otherwise embarrassed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SBN Tech to show off Android-based IP Video Phone at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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