Hasta La Gadget!

Motorola has just announced its eighth Android phone at MWC, dubbed the CLIQ XT or Quench outside the US (and previously known as the Zeppelin). Highlights include a 3.1-inch touchscreen with a mysterious “high-resolution” (last time we heard, it was 480 x 320), “pinch and zoom” touch capabilities, 5 megapixel camera (with autofocus and LED flash), a navigation touchpad and a dual-mic noise cancellation system. The rest of the features are pretty bog-standard: stereo Bluetooth, AGPS, FM radio, Motoblur and Adobe Flash Lite. Unlike the CLIQ there’s no physical keyboard here, but if that’s how you roll then look out for T-Mobile USA’s launch and pricing for this phone next month. The rest of us shall quench our thirst with something else for the time being.

Continue reading Motorola CLIQ XT / Quench joins the Android family at MWC

Motorola CLIQ XT / Quench joins the Android family at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Samsung is desperate for us and the world to focus on its very first Bada device — the Wave S8500 — we found something a bit more interesting for Google fans. Tucked away in the depths of a spec sheet is Samsung’s unannounced i8520 phone running Android 2.1. After quizzing a team of perplexed executives of increasing rank, a VP from Samsung’s mobile division finally told us that it’ll be revealed as the “Halo” tomorrow when the show floor opens. Looking at the spec sheet then, the i8520 Halo packs a 3.7-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display (bigger than the Wave’s 3.3-incher), 8 megapixel autofocus camera with flash (VGA on the front), 720p / 30fps video encoding / decoding, DivX and Xvid playback support, Bluetooth 2.1, standard 3.5mm headphone jack, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, A-GPS, 16GB of internal storage and microSD expansion, stereo speakers, DLNA support, and — get this — a DLP pico projector integrated. The spec-sheet also lists a “Specialized Projector UI” as one of the features, suggesting it’ll look a little different when you toss it up onto the big screen. This quad-band GSM / EDGE phone with tri-band UMTS 900 / 1900 / 2100 will ship in Q3 to Europe and Asia with a chance for a US version at some point later. We’ll bring you more tomorrow just as soon as we get through all this paella.

Note: Even though the i8520 clearly seems to run the same UI as the Bada-powered Wave, we’ve been assured by multiple people in Samsung — including a VP in the Mobile division — that it is, in fact, running Android 2.1. That ties in nicely with the fact that Bada’s graphical representation comes through as a new cut of TouchWiz, so it makes sense these guys would want to port the same look and feel to other platforms. Also of note is the fact that we couldn’t confirm from the company that it’s got a projector on board, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest it does: the so-called Specialized Projector UI, the fact that the 14.9mm girth is likely thick enough to swallow the necessary optics, and — of course — the big DLP logo on back. We’ll bring out the final details just as soon as we know ’em.

Update: Images confirm it, Halo is a projector phone!

Samsung i8520 ‘Halo’ Android 2.1 phone with 3.7-inch Super AMOLED and pico projector (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that hand-waving trick that got a Nexus One to give up the 3G ghost way, way too easily? Well, we don’t want to pop the champagne just yet, but there’s a new non-over-the-air firmware update floating around that includes yet another radio bump among its sundry features, suggesting HTC isn’t quite done yet tuning this thing to get proper HSPA without freaking out from time to time. Whatever this update is, it may never see the official light of day in its current form — it includes Google Maps 3.4, for one thing, while Google’s already gone ahead and upped the ante to 4.0 for Buzz support — but at least it seems engineers aren’t done trying to make this thing work properly.

[Thanks, b3ast]

New Nexus One ROM leaks, fixes more radio issues? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember the HP Android Smartbook that Steve Ballmer hoisted up at CES? At the time, details were limited to the fact that it ran Android and used a netbook skin. And just days before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HP has given it an official name: The Compaq Airlife 100.

From the looks of it, HP basically took the second-generation Mini 110 netbook, customized the right mouse button, and slapped Google’s Android operating system on it. It runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor and has 512MB if RAM, and a 16GB internal Flash drive. Every other feature is reminiscent of a netbook, including the 10-inch widescreen, 1,024-by-600 resolution, card reader, and 28WH battery (3-cell).

More intriguing is what will HP will do in the tablet space, now that we know it has a device that runs on basically the same parts as the Apple iPad. The Airlife 100 will be available only in Europe for now. There’s no word on pricing or when it’ll be available in the United States.

Eager to get your mitts on the first Motoblur-enabled phone to land on Verizon? Sorry bronco, it ain’t happening today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. According to the leaked flyer above, however, the impatient among us should be able to secure a Devour on the 25th of this month. After it filters out through those “indirect channels,” the phone will make its way into all VZW channels on March 15th, though it’s still anyone’s guess as to a price. Speaking of guesses — got any insight you’d like to share in comments?

Motorola Devour launching somewhere on February 25th, everywhere on March 15th originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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