Hasta La Gadget!

Readers in the British Empire get ready for Sony Ericsson‘s biggest UK marketing campaign ever. That’s in the lead-up to the release of the Xperia Play, a phone that we’ve been hearing about for so long that we’d need some pretty shocking commercials to get us all excited again. You may feel differently, though, so mark your calendars for March 31st. That’s the end of the month and falls in nicely with the “late March” word we’d heard for elsewhere in the world, though that is awfully late. As to where you can buy it, it’s said that “all the mobile operators and retailers” will have it, so you shouldn’t have to wander too far. And, with six games pre-installed, you should even be reasonably well equipped to kill the rest of that Thursday.

Sony Xperia Play hits the UK on March 31st, thumbsticks coming never originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the Xperia Play is finally official ahead of a full unveiling at MWC next week, carriers are ready to hop on the bandwagon — or at least one is: O2 in the UK. Other than a brief tweet, no other details are given at this point, though the quick support of a major European carrier has to be good news for Sony Ericsson considering that device subsidies are no longer a sure thing… and without question, the Play represents something of a Hail Mary for one of the most badly bruised and beaten titans of the wireless industry. Pricing on contract is, of course, a huge open question — as is North American support — but hopefully all will be revealed on the 13th.

[Thanks, Ed]

Update: Pocket-lint says it can “exclusively confirm” that Vodafone will be getting the phone as well, suggesting that Sony Ericsson may not be pursuing exclusivity periods here — at least, not in the UK.

Update 2: Pocket-lint is additionally reporting that Orange and T-Mobile UK (collectively known as Everything Everywhere) are signed up to get it in April, which would put it around the same time as the Xperia Arc. Still no word on what this might mean for North American launches.

O2 UK says it’s getting the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (update: other UK carriers, April launch) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That pinch-to-zoom update for the Xperia X10 that Japanese customers got an early lead on is now rolling out around the globe according to a new blog post from the boys and girls at Sony Ericsson. That may not be the most interesting part, though: they’re also chatting up a future firmware update that’ll enable ANT+ support on the Xperia X8, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro, a capability baked into the chipsets on those devices that Sony Ericsson hadn’t previously exploited. Theoretically, that means that heart rate monitors and other wearable fitness gear — a market where ANT+ has really blossomed — could connect directly to your phone rather than passing through a computer with an ANT+ dongle first, perfect for analyzing jogs on the go. Of course, workout technology is always more appealing than the workout itself… but if you can solve that problem, Sony Ericsson, let us know. You can find us on the couch over there.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10’s multitouch update rolling out now; X8, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro getting ANT+ support soon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Although Rohan told us that his Adam tablet had cleared FCC testing a few weeks ago, it’s not until today, just now actually, that we’ve seen the filing go public. For our troubles the FCC has done us the solid of a full-blown teardown. And honestly, it’s not pretty. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to see so many hand-soldered connections and individual strands of wire encompassing the NVIDIA Tegra T20-H-A0 application processor and embedded Ericsson F3307 HSPA broadband module — it is, after all, the tiny startup’s first mass-market device. But we’ve borne witness to many a splayings including the tidy tablet teardowns of the iPad and Galaxy Tab. As such, the Adam comes across as a bedraggled mess of suspect build quality — great for modders, less great (potentially) for the average I-just-want-it-to-work consumer. Naturally, NI doesn’t have the design or manufacturing muscle of Apple or Samsung and with the tablet having only just now shipped it’ll be months before we have a good idea about the device’s integrity. So kick back for now with a few of the more egregious components (like the swiveling camera) after the break with the rest piled up in the gallery below.

Continue reading Notion Ink Adam hits the FCC, torn apart in haste

Notion Ink Adam hits the FCC, torn apart in haste originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 05:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Starting to look pretty real, isn’t it? That rumored X10 Mini Pro replacement seems to be gallivanting about in China again; this time it’s not turned on, but the point is that it’s out there and certainly doesn’t seem knockoff-y to be a fake. For what it’s worth, the original X10 Mini series has been one of the few relatively bright points in Sony Ericsson’s Android lineup thus far, so we’re pretty stoked to see that they appear to be taking another shot at the diminutive form factor — let’s just hope those wild GPU results we saw last time hold up by the time it’s at retail.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro successor out for another casual stroll? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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