Hasta La Gadget!

Official announcements be damned — Verizon’s just thrown up a “coming soon” preview page for the HTC Incredible. While we didn’t necessarily need any more evidence this guy was real — we’ve read its user’s manual, we’ve spied shots of it in Verizon’s system, and we’ve seen it in the wild enough times to sketch it quickly from memory with our eyes closed — it’s still exciting news to know that the inevitable unleashing of this beast is nearly upon us.

Update: They’ve changed up this page already (as you can see from our updated image) — giving us the date of April 29th. And yes, they’re calling it the Droid Incredible.

Update 2: You’ll want to hit the read more and check out some photographic evidence of the Incredible making its way to T-Mobile via Costco stores — it appears to be showing up in inventories now — we’ll keep you posted.

Update 3: And now the website is password protected. That’s okay: we know what it said.

[Thanks, Ryan and James]

Continue reading HTC Droid Incredible shows up on official Verizon preview page — coming April 29th (updated)

HTC Droid Incredible shows up on official Verizon preview page — coming April 29th (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This transition from the last crop of Core 2 Duo chips (which Apple introduced in June of last year) to Intel’s Core 2010 chips has caused quite the unprecedented wait, but at last we’re staring down a fresh crop of MacBook Pros and all is right with the world. The 13-inchers are sticking with Core 2 Duo, but the 15.4-inch and 17-inch models are now Core i5 and Core i7 through and through. The higher end models are nabbing NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 330M graphics with something akin to Optimus switching (though Apple just calls it “automatic graphics switching technology,” and claims to be using its own tech), while the 13-incher get NVIDIA GeForce 320M scraps. Along with the faster 2.4GHz and 2.66GHz chips in the 13-inch, Apple claims to be able to squeeze 10 hours of battery life from the machine, but the real meat is in the Core i5 2.4GHz (520M), Core i5 2.53GHz (540M), and Core i7 2.66GHz (620M) processors in the larger models. The 330M graphics are twice as fast as the 13’s 320M, but thanks to the magic of Optimus, er, “automatic graphics switching,” which switches the GPU on and off on the fly based on the needs of the task at hand, Apple still thinks you’ll manage 8 to 9 hours of battery life on these big guys.

All machines come with 4GB of RAM, and while hard drives are standard (320GB and 500GB in the higher end), you’re free to add a 512GB SSD to your machine if you so choose, for a mere $1,300. Interestingly only the 15-incher is getting that top Core i7 chip, with the sole 17-inch model is consigned to the 2.53GHz Core i5 (though you can choose Core i7 in the build to order options). Prices range from $1,799 on the 15 (up from the last-gen’s $1,699 base price!) to $2,299 on the 17, with a $1,199 starting price on the 13. On the 15-inch you can pick between a 1440 x 900 “glossy” display, a 1680 x 1050 glossy display for $100 more, and an anti-glare hi-res display for another $50 on top of that (you 17-inch users are stuck with 1920 x 1200 and glossy). The biggest tweak outside of these beefy internals is “inertial scrolling” support for the trackpads, à la iPhone, though we’re not sure why this couldn’t have been added with just a software update. Everything’s up on the Apple Store right now for your perusal, with the bigger models shipping “within 24 hours” and a 2-4 day delay on the 13-inch.

Apple refreshes MacBook Pro family with Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors… at long last! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s finally official: Microsoft Pink — the product of Redmond’s acquisition of Danger — has just been unveiled as a pair of handsets sourced from Sharp (which made most of Danger’s Sidekicks) known as the Kin One and Kin Two. The devices are being marketed as Windows Phones, and while they’re ultimately based on most of the same underpinnings of Windows Phone 7, it’s a distinctly and totally different experience — the entire user interface is custom to Kin with a heavy social media slant, a custom browser (we’re told it’s based on the Zune’s browser), and surprisingly, zero support for third-party apps. The displays are capacitive with support for multitouch (yes, you can pinch and zoom in the browser), but there’s no support for in-browser Flash or Silverlight.

Kin One — the phone we’d seen rumored as “Turtle” — is basically a curved square slider with a QVGA display, 4GB of internal storage, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a full QWERTY keyboard. Kin Two, meanwhile, is the phone leaked as the “Pure,” upping the ante with a HVGA display and a more traditional landscape QWERTY slide form factor. It also moves up to an 8 megapixel cam and 8GB of internal storage, but otherwise, the experience is roughly the same as what you get on the One; both phones have WiFi and Bluetooth in addition to their 3G cellular radios. For what it’s worth, Microsoft is emphasizing that internal storage really isn’t a big deal with the Kin phones, because your entire photo and video collection that you capture using the onboard camera is synced seamlessly with your bottomless online storage; you can access the entire collection from your phone at any time by browsing thumbnails, and if you want the full content, you can download it. Kin comes bundled with a desktop web experience that’s entirely based on Silverlight for viewing and sorting just about all of the major stuff that you can see on your phone — contacts, social network status updates, images, and so on — and we’ve got to admit, it looks pretty slick. Keep reading after the break for a lot more info and video!

Continue reading Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two announced: Windows Phone roots with a social slant (updated with video)

Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two announced: Windows Phone roots with a social slant (updated with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No hard details yet, but opponents of net neutrality just scored a big victory — the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has sided with Comcast and ruled that the FCC doesn’t have the authority under current law to impose regulations on internet service providers. Obviously we’re super interested in the wonky minutiae, so we’ll be digging for them — stay tuned.

Update: Okay, we’re reading the opinion (PDF below) and basically it boils down like this: the FCC ordered Comcast to stop filtering Bittorrent on its network in early 2008, and Comcast filed suit, saying the FCC didn’t have the authority to intervene like that. Since there’s no specific law giving the FCC the authority to regulate the internet, the FCC told the court it was using its “ancillary powers,” which allow the agency to take actions needed to fulfill its role — and the FCC was interpreting its role as promoting net neutrality based on the policy statements of Congress. The court said that wasn’t good enough, obviously — we’d bet this gets appealed immediately while Congress goes to work on a specific law authorizing the Commission to impose net neutrality.

Update 2: Here’s the FCC’s response to the opinion:

The FCC is firmly committed to promoting an open Internet and to policies that will bring the enormous benefits of broadband to all Americans. It will rest these policies — all of which will be designed to foster innovation and investment while protecting and empowering consumers — on a solid legal foundation.
Today’s court decision invalidated the prior Commission’s approach to preserving an open Internet. But the Court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end.

Court rules FCC doesn’t have authority to impose net neutrality originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Samsung-sourced femtocell that Sprint and Verizon have been offering (as the Airave and Wireless Network Extender, respectively) is all well and good, but it’s got one fatal flaw: unlike AT&T’s aptly-named 3G MicroCell, it doesn’t have support for 3G data — it’s compatible with CDMA 1x alone. Verizon’s fixing that later this year with an updated model from Samsung, but thanks to a fresh FCC filing, it looks like Sprint will be taking a different route by roping in Airvana for the Airave’s successor. On top of EV-DO, the interesting bit about this puppy is that it supports a VoIP-routed landline connection around back; we’re not sure whether Sprint actually plans on enabling this extra jack, but it’s specifically mentioned in the draft manual, so we wouldn’t doubt it. No word on a release just yet — but FCC approval is frequently one of the last steps on a product’s road to retail, so we might see it soon.

Sprint Airave gets remixed by Airvana, has VoIP landline and EV-DO support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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