Hasta La Gadget!

Compared to the other crazy handsets Dell leaked today, the Aero is definitely the runt of the litter. But with a leaked Q2 AT&T release date, the Aero will be first on our doorstep. What other juicy morsels have we gathered? On the hardware side, it’s sadly a slow 624MHz Marvell processor that drives that 3.5-inch capacitive multitouch screen, but hey, like the Chinese model, it’s planned to ship with a capacitive stylus for handwriting recognition.

More interesting is software. Like Motorola’s CLIQ, Aero comes with QuickOffice right out of the box, and supports Microsoft ActiveSync and Exchange to ostensibly keep in touch with your business. For the social crowd, there’s on-device photo editing and “aggregated notifications” for the bevy of social networks Dell’s agreed to support. While you probably knew the device would have a WebKit browser with Flash Lite, leaks reveal it will have a robust media player as well — robust enough to have some sort of music streaming and download ability (PlayReady, anyone?) protected by Windows Media DRM. Though it’s probably still Android 1.5 onboard, docs show Dell plans a “refresh” to Android 2.1 sometime between Q3 and Q4, but it’s hard to say whether the Aero will get an OTA update, or whether only new Aeros will ship with Eclair. That said, given the relative insignificance of this handset compared to its new big brothers, we’re more than willing to wait and find out.

Dell Aero details confirmed with new leak: 624MHz processor, handwriting support, DRM originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, so imagine a Pixi, but awesome. We think you’d end up with something closely resembling the phone that Dell’s whipping up with a codename of “Smoke,” running Android Froyo atop a 2.8-inch QVGA display (looks more like WVGA to us, but whatevs). Dell calls it a “non-conforming style,” but we just call it drop-dead gorgeous — assuming the final product even remotely resembles the company’s renders — and they’re even promising a price that “won’t break the bank,” which is always a nice little bonus. The description we’re reading of the phone leads us to believe that Dell will be targeting a corporate audience with the Smoke, and that’s certainly the clique that tends to enjoy portrait QWERTY keyboards, so this should fit right in amongst the sea of BlackBerrys when it launches in the second quarter of 2011. That’s a hell of a wait, yes, but in return, you’ll be getting Qualcomm’s next-gen MSM7230 processor at 800MHz, a 5 megapixel autofocus cam, 14.4Mbps HSPA, microSD expansion to 32GB, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and dual-mic noise canceling tech in a 12mm package. Check out the full gallery below!

Dell Smoke slaps Android in the wild form factor you secretly wanted originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can’t officially confirm this yet but, We’re hearing from all over that a bad McAfee for Windows XP update is causing computers worldwide to shut down. Apparently DAT update 5958 deletes the svchost.exe file, which then triggers a false-positive in McAfee itself and sets off a chain of uncontrolled restarts and loss of networking functionality. Yeah, wild — Twitter is basically going nuts, and McAfee’s support site appears to be down. There are some fixes floating around out there, but it may be too late — the final tally of borked PCs today may reach into the millions. We’ve already heard anecdotally that an Intel facility has been affected, as well as Dish Network call centers, and we’re sure there are going to be more reports as the day wears on.

Update: McAfee just sent us a statement — they’ve pulled the update from their corporate download servers, and consumers shouldn’t be affected.

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to incorrect malware alerts on Wednesday, April 21. The problem occurs with the 5958 virus definition file (DAT) that was released on April 21 at 2.00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time).

Our initial investigation indicates that the error can result in moderate to significant performance issues on systems running Windows XP Service Pack 3.

The faulty update has been removed from McAfee download servers for corporate users, preventing any further impact on those customers. We are not aware of significant impact on consumer customers and believe we have effectively limited such occurrence.

McAfee teams are working with the highest priority to support impacted customers and plan to provide an update virus definition file shortly. McAfee apologizes for any inconvenience to our customers

Ouch — that might be the understatement of the year. We’ve definitely hearing this affects SP2 as well, we’ll keep looking for more.

Update 2: The anecdotal numbers keep rolling in, and they’re not small — 30,000 machines are knocked out here, 60,000 there. Given that the only fixes right now involve techs spending time with each affected machine individually, things could get seriously messy. We’ll keep you updated if you keep us updated, okay?

Update 3: Here’s an official McAfee fix, although like we said, it requires tech to hit each machine in person. We’ll see what the story is for bigger institutions with tens of thousands of seats.

Update 4: We’re told the official fix only helps those who haven’t been hit with the bug yet, so there’s obviously still issues to be sorted out. [Thanks, Tyler.]

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Developing…

Botched McAfee update shutting down corporate XP machines worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve known that Garmin-Asus has been working on a phone with T-Mobile’s 3G bands for a while, but now we finally know what it is: meet the Garminfone. Yes, just “Garminfone” — you won’t find an ounce of nuvifone branding here, despite the fact that the device is a dead ringer for the nuvifone A50 announced back at MWC, which leads us to believe that AT&T might hold the exclusive American rights to market the name with its own G60. Whatever the case may be, you can expect a 3 megapixel autofocus cam, microSD expansion up to 32GB, WiFi, and full HSPA alongside Garmin’s own flavor of Android (currently based on 1.6, we believe) that emphasizes its nuvi-esque navigation capabilities on a 3.5-inch HVGA display. As you might expect, it’ll come bundled with a charging dash / windshield mount (notice those gold connectors on the side of the phone) when it launches “later this Spring.” Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading T-Mobile Garminfone official: Android, 3 megapixels, zero nuvi branding

T-Mobile Garminfone official: Android, 3 megapixels, zero nuvi branding originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well what do you know about this? With all those rumors flying around that the iPhone 4G we’d spotted was no more than a Japanese knock-off of an Apple product, it was starting to look like this thing was too good to be true. That is until one of the Engadget editors spotted what seems to be solid proof that this is — in fact — the next iPhone. If you’ll recall, the night before the iPad was revealed, we had leaked shots of the device from what appeared to be an Apple test lab. Upon further inspection of these pictures today, the aforementioned editor discovered that the new iPhone 4G we’ve just gotten photos of is actually sitting on the table beside the iPad prototype! Imagine how blown our minds were when we realized we have had a photo of the next iPhone for months! As you can see in the pic above, the left side of the new device is clearly visible on this table in the upper right hand corner, and since we believe that these photos come directly from an Apple testbed, it’s hard to deny that the phone you’ve just seen is in fact the real deal. Not only that, but we suspect that the device on the tablet itself is also a version of the new phone (you can see what looks like aluminum along the bottom) which seems to be housed in some type of iPhone 3G-like case.

Additionally, a source — who confirms this is the next Apple iPhone — also tells us that the device apparently does have a higher res screen on-board, a front-facing camera, a higher resolution camera with flash, and takes MicroSIM cards (that’s the little “button” around the side you see in the Twitpic which is floating around the internet). We’re working on uncovering more info, but right now you can take a look at the proof above for yourself, and in the gallery below.

Note: The device we’re talking about can be clearly seen in the UPPER RIGHT HAND CORNER OF THE PHOTO, you know, with the arrow pointing to it.

Update: A Mac Rumors forum member has just posted pictures from Chinese site WeiPhone of what appears to be the guts of this device. These images line up with what we know right now. We’ve added a gallery of the shots below.

Update 2: In response to commenters and tipsters questioning the differences between the Twitpic and WeiPhone pics and the “San Jose” photos; these are likely handmade demo units, therefore there will be minor differences between them such as the screws appearing and then not appearing. We believe the models which will roll off of the production lines in China will look like these devices, likely with some minor physical tweaks, but they will look like these phones. Other major design decisions are already set in stone, such as the rumored glass back, which is present on both of these devices (Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber mentions them here). Yes, there are very minor discrepancies between these photos, but you need to understand they are from a very small pool of hand-built tester units. It is incredibly likely that the next version of the iPhone will look like the photos you see in the gallery below, and we certainly wouldn’t claim that if we didn’t have good reason to believe it.

Update 3: Gruber has expanded on the info concerning a glass backing for these new devices, and he’s dug up a 2006 Apple patent application on a ceramic enclosure for handheld devices which is also (ding ding ding), radio transparent.

iPhone 4G: proof originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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