Hasta La Gadget!

When Lenovo decided to shelve the Skylight smartbook, there were many tears here at Engadget HQ, but it seems the company’s ambitions continue in the smartphone-turned-netbook realm. Notebook Italia reports that a new Lenovo IdeaPad has surfaced at the Freescale Technology Forum this week, powered by a Freescale i.MX515 SoC with an 800MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, smartphone-esque battery life, and a power management system reportedly robust enough that it doesn’t even need to be cooled. If all this sounds rather familiar, it might be because you’ve seen it before — it appears Lenovo simply tweaked the low-power Pegatron reference design that we wrote about early last year. Not that we’re complaining or anything.

Lenovo IdeaPad smartbook appears, powered by Freescale and Pegatron originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hard to believe but after all this time the N900 remains the most powerful handset in Nokia’s vast collection of cellphones. No other Nokia handset even comes close and that won’t change until Nokia launches the Symbian^3-powered N8 or the MeeGo-powered N9. So if you’ve got the dough and a certain inclination to write Python scripts on a Friday night, you might want to think about sliding $369 (down from $649 at launch or $479 currently at Nokia USA) Espoo’s way for a crack at the ARM Cortex A8 slider. Sure, it’s not the freshest face on the block, but the development community will certainly help eek-out every last bit of value for many months to come.

P.S. Don’t forget to apply the coupon code LL17PBSTFKZ440 to get the reduced price.

Nokia N900 drops to $369, unlocked originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We wouldn’t fault you for thinking that’s a first generation ASUS Eee PC what with that iconic fingertip pose and all. But Toshiba’s AC100 is a very modern take on the ol’ Atom-based netbook idea. For starters, this super slim smartbook runs Android 2.1 on a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 250 SoC (built around a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor) capable of about 8 hours of browsing and video playback (and 7 days standby) before needing a recharge. It’s also packing a 32GB SSD, 512MB of DDR2 memory, 802.11n WiFi, optional 3G data, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, and an HDMI jack beneath that 10.1-inch 1,024 x 600 pixel display. As for software, the AC100 ships with Documents to Go for editing MS Office docs, an email client with POP3, IMAP, and Exchange support, an Opera Mobile browser, and a Tosh media player which should support HD 1080p video playback if it’s taking full advantage of that Tegra 2 silicon. Too bad Toshiba is being quiet about the pricing and availability ’cause this little guy has us intrigued.

Update: Netbooked got its hands on with the Japanese Dynabook AZ twin and received confirmation that it’ll ship in Japan in August for between ¥40,000 and ¥50,000 (about $438 to $548). Video after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba’s AC100 8-hour Android smartbook plays 1080p video on a 1GHz Tegra 250 processor (update: video!)

Toshiba’s AC100 8-hour Android smartbook plays 1080p video on a 1GHz Tegra 250 processor (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 05:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My, my — what have we here? No, seriously, what is this hodgepodge of (rival) companies, and why have they suddenly decided to high five each other here at Computex? Frankly, we’re still trying to piece it all together, but after sitting through a Linaro launch event in Taipei, we’re beginning to get a better handle on the relationship that Samsung, ARM, IBM, Freescale, ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments and the Linux Foundation have just made official. The outfits mentioned above are coming together to form the UK-based Linaro (a not-for-profit entity), which currently has 25 engineers but will see that figure shoot up to nearly a hundred around the world in the coming days. In short, the new firm — which will have an annual budget in the “tens of millions of dollars” but below “$100 million” — is seeking to “speed the rollout of Linux-based devices,” with one of the key points being this: Linaro will “provide a stable and optimized base for distributions and developers by creating new releases of optimized tools, kernel and middleware software validated for a wide range of SoCs, every six months.”

Read on for more…

Continue reading ARM, Samsung, IBM, Freescale, TI and more join to form Linaro, speed rollout of Linux-based devices

ARM, Samsung, IBM, Freescale, TI and more join to form Linaro, speed rollout of Linux-based devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM kicked off the long list of Computex press conferences this morning, and though most of the time was spent giving us a history of mobile computing, ARM president Tudor Brown did shed a bit of light on future plans. When showing off the current family of ARM processors, we couldn’t help but notice the next generation “Eagle” above the current Cortex-A9 platform. While Brown didn’t share any specifics on the ARM v7-based chip, he did say that it will provide improved performance, and would be fully announced at “a later date.” Also, when asked about supporting Google TV, Brown noted that it’s in the works; he also said that with the company’s recent Flash and Chrome browser support, they plan to optimize for the TV-based operating system. That’s all we’ve got for now, but as you’d expect, the outfit brought along a load of ARM-based devices for showcasing, all of which you’ll find in the gallery below.

ARM: ‘Eagle’ to follow Cortex-A9, will support Google TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 May 2010 23:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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