Hasta La Gadget!

Yes yes, y’all: it’s the Engadget Podcast. We’re brimming this week, as usual, with the low down on what’s going down with all the new stuff. We’ve got the killer combo of lots of streaming news and a dearth of optical drives. We’ve got shaky earnings calls translating into big deals on the floor at Best Buy. And boy, do we have a little bit of Android news? We do! It’s all here, as usual. Enjoy.

Host: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater
Guests: Dana Wollman, Richard Lawler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Beethoven’s 5th

02:24 – Mac mini review (mid 2011)
03:20 – Editorial: Apple’s officially over the optical drive, for better or worse
09:16 – MacBook Air review (mid 2011)
16:10 – Netflix adds Mad Men in the US today, CBS content in Canada and Latin America later
16:34 – Amazon Prime Instant Video is adding CBS TV shows, including all of Star Trek
17:50 – Amazon strikes movie streaming deal with Universal, adds ‘Fear and Loathing’ to free shipping
24:17 – The Engadget Show – 023: We tour a headphone factory, talk record labels, and look at They Might Be Giants’ favorite gadgets
25:36 – Nintendo posts earnings, drops 3DS from $249 to $169 August 12th, current owners get 20 free games
28:47 – Logitech CEO steps down after money losing Q1, Revue price slashed to $99
37:15 – Toshiba Thrive review
39:52 – HTC Status review
44:46 – Windows Phone 7.5 Mango in-depth preview (video)
46:20 – HTC CFO says it’s time to ‘figure it out’ with Apple
48:52 – Two more fake Apple Stores spotted by officials in China, two get the smackdown
50:40 – Listener questions

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Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 250 – 07.29.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All said, Q2 wasn’t such a bad one for the black logoed Motorola Solutions, with sales of $2.1 billion, up six percent from this time last year. That number includes $1.3 billion for government sales and $747 million for enterprise, up four and 11 percent over last year, respectively. Motorola Solutions, Inc. (MSI to its friends) was formed earlier this year, when the tech company split in two. Solutions specializes in things like barcode scanners and two-way radios, while Motorola Mobility Holdings deals with the more familiar (to us, at least) smartphone and Xoom-y side of things.

Continue reading Motorola Solutions hits $2.1 billion in sales for Q2

Motorola Solutions hits $2.1 billion in sales for Q2 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s another mixed bag worth of earnings for the folks in Overland Park. Sprint just announced its Q2 2011 earnings prior to the market’s open today, and while it’s obviously doing its darnedest to paint a rosy picture, the raw numbers show a somewhat different backdrop. Despite having its third consecutive quarter of adding more than one million total net new wireless subscribers, the vast majority of those are coming from the (admittedly less lucrative) prepaid side. In fact, the company lost 101,000 postpaid subscribers in the period, and we’re guessing that the one-two punch of WiMAX hitting the expansion skids while VZW built out LTE at a breakneck pace didn’t help matters. 674,000 prepaid subs were added to the mix (through Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, etc. arms), and despite seeing quarterly sequential and year-over-year growth in wireless service revenue, the carrier still reported a net loss of $847 million. In a way, it’s the same story on a different day for The Now Network, and while the just-announced LightSquared partnership may end up bolstering things in time, it’ll take something a bit more jarring to turn things around by Q3. Or Q4… right, Dan?

Sprint posts Q2 2011 earnings: net subs up, contract subs down, net loss of $847 million originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After six months of knuckle-crunching losses, LG can finally wind the window down and turn the radio on to Seoul FM. The electronics giant just reported a net profit of ₩108 billion ($100 million) in the last quarter, primarily thanks to sales of LED and Cinema 3D TVs. Its handset subsidiary, which has been pushing into the Android high end with devices like the Optimus 2X, is still bleeding cash — but losses were halved compared to last quarter, so perhaps the wound is finally scabbing over. Meanwhile, the LG Home Appliance Company posted “record-high” sales, but it’ll have to Thinq even harder in future because profits were held back by higher material costs, currency fluctuations and greater competition. Definitely too soon for cruise control.

LG turns it around, reports profits back in the green originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were still wondering why Netflix chose right now to split apart its unlimited DVD and streaming movie plans you need look no further than the just released Q2 financial report. According to the numbers, 75 percent of new subscribers were picking streaming only plans, while the total number of people on the hybrid DVD / streaming plan had actually decreased slightly, even as it breached 25 million subscribers worldwide. Of course, it did notice the intense backlash to the new rates, but predicts that after the hit of cancellations by the end of the third quarter it will still have 22 million people subscribed to streaming, 15 million total subscribed to DVDs, and about 12 million customers with both. Waiting on that Facebook integration? Don’t hold your breath, while the new features are due to launch soon in Canada and Latin America, it claims ambiguous wording in the Video Privacy Protection Act is holding things back domestically.

Other details include confirmation it will not look into purchasing Hulu, and that it’s still negotiating a renewal of its deal with Starz. While the DVD business may have peaked, it’s not quite dead yet and Netflix indicated it will start marketing that feature again in the fourth quarter. Click the source link to paw through the PDF yourself, we’ll be keeping an ear tuned to the investor call later to find out exactly what the company’s executives are thinking.

Netflix rises to 25 million subscribers in Q2, thinks DVD business has already peaked originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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