Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen it powered down and had it dangled in front of us and now, four months after its launch, we’ve finally had a chance to play with a real, working Samsung Infuse 4G. This 4.5-inch superphone — the biggest Sammy has made to date — feels surprisingly light in the hands, despite its width. That’s largely thanks to its crazy-thin 8.99mm profile, along with a subtly textured backside. The Super AMOLED Plus display — the same kind found on the smaller Droid Charge — which promises to be brighter than Super AMOLED as well as easier to view in direct sunlight, is simply stunning. We were seriously impressed by the punchy colors and deep blacks, although that outdoor test will have to wait for another day.

Blessedly, Samsung lets those vibrant colors speak for themselves — it loaded the phone with Android 2.2 and abstained from saddling it with its TouchWiz UI made its TouchWiz UI less intrusive out of the box. The handset packs a single — not dual — core 1.2GHz processor, but you won’t notice or care how many cores it has unless you’re a benchmark junkie — the phone launches applications briskly, while the touchscreen is responsive and always precise. We noticed nary a delay as we swiped among the seven home screens and three application pages. Speaking of speed, this is AT&T’s first device to promise max speeds of 21 Mbps. Samsung held its press event in a New York City restaurant with poor reception, alas, and we have a feeling the crawling rates we observed off-camera don’t do this phone justice. We’re walking out of here with one of these bad boys, and we’re stoked to fully put it through its paces over the next few days. We’ll be back with an in-depth review, but in the meantime, have a gander at the gallery of close-up shots below.

Updated: Unlike the Inspire 4G, Captivate, and Aria, the Infuse 4G enables app sideloading and features the “Unknown Sources” menu item in the settings. Check out a photo of the appropriate settings screen in the updated gallery.

Samsung Infuse 4G hands-on (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 17:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint may be delaying the release of the PlayBook on its network, according to a recently leaked internal memo. Photo courtesy of Sprint

Yet another bit of bad news for BlackBerry PlayBook enthusiasts: The launch of the device on Sprint’s network may be delayed indefinitely.

A leaked internal Sprint memo sent out to the company’s many retail stores announces the delay of the PlayBook, with the official release date “to be communicated as soon as it is available.” First reported by BriefMobile, the memo gives no reason for the delay.

It may not be the first time the PlayBook has been delayed on the network. According to another leaked internal memo, the product was slated to roll out on Sprint’s network in April, but was pushed back until May 8th.

Sprint declined to comment on the veracity of the memo, instead issuing the following statement: “We have said we would offer BlackBerry 4G PlayBook this summer, but have not announced a specific date as of yet.”

The news comes in the wake of uncertainty from at least one other carrier. Although RIM had announced that it planned to release the PlayBook on the big three U.S. carriers (Verizon, AT&T and Sprint), a Verizon company spokesperson recently said the company has yet to decide whether or not it will carry the tablet. AT&T did not immediately return a Thursday morning request for comment, but as of April 21 had confirmed to Wired.com that the PlayBook will be released on its HSPA+ network.

Early critical reception of the PlayBook has been lukewarm at best, as reviewers were disappointed with its lack of certain features like native e-mail and contacts applications. But at its BlackBerry World conference in Orlando this week, manufacturer Research in Motion is demoing a number of the missing apps users have asked for, with promises to launch the features this summer.

With the prospect of these software updates coming to the PlayBook sooner rather than later, we’ll see if the carriers begin to change their tune.

When AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon came together to create the Isis mobile payment system, they touted a standalone service, powered by Discover’s payment network, that would revolutionize the way we make small purchases on the move. Well, the revolution is still on schedule, apparently, but the big trio is now being said to have made a concession in reaching out to the incumbent leaders in this field, Visa and MasterCard. The Wall Street Journal cites multiple sources in reporting that Isis has turned into a less ambitious “mobile wallet” project that would seek to let you use your Visa or MasterCard account via your NFC-capable smartphone. As far as the consumer is concerned, it’s still the same swipe-to-buy proposition, but the move was apparently necessary for Isis “to avoid falling further behind” in the race to corner this developing market. We’d say it’s encouraging to see these guys showing a bit of swiftness — it’s about time the rest of the world caught up to Japan.

Isis mobile payment system to work with Visa and MasterCard, shelving plans for its own network originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well everybody, it looks like the free ride is over: carriers in the US have started to seriously crack down on Android tethering apps. Head on over to the Android Market site and try to install an app that turns your smartphone into a WiFi hotspot — there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be told, “this item is not available on your carrier.” We checked out a number of different tethering options and they were all blocked by T-Mobile and AT&T, which isn’t entirely new. Verizon has also joined the party and, while it missed at least one that we spotted, we’re sure they’ll all be gone in short order. Only Sprint has decided against banning such apps… for now. It looks like you might have to finally cough up for that tethering plan you’ve been desperately trying to avoid.

Carriers crack down on Android tethering apps, rain on our mobile hotspot parade originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 15:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tomorrow is May 2nd, 2011, and you know what that means — tomorrow is the day that AT&T will impose data caps on DSL and U-Verse Internet, and begin tallying up overage fees. At least, that was the plan on March 18th — when the company formally announced 150GB DSL and 250GB U-Verse caps — but even if you’re a paying customer who chows down several hundred gigabytes in a month, you may not have to worry about paying extra right away. AT&T specified that folks like yourself will have access to an online tool to self-police your usage before the company even begins to calculate the cost of your formerly all-you-can-eat bandwidth buffet, and as you can see in the picture above, the tool isn’t quite ready for public consumption across the entire country. Scoot on over to our source link, enter your AT&T ID, and if you see the same, perhaps you won’t have to cancel your 700-hour Star Trek marathon quite yet.

PSA: AT&T DSL and U-Verse landline internet caps begin tomorrow, if you can see this website originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 13:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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