Hasta La Gadget!

Russian site Gagadget seems to have scored pictures of a phone that matches up perfectly with the teasers Sony Ericsson has placed strategically around the CES show grounds this week — which, in turn, look a whole lot like the Anzu we’ve been seeing leaked for a few months. The site’s saying this bad boy will come to market as the Xperia Arc, so called thanks to a concave backside. The specs, if legit, are decent: 1GHz Qualcomm processor (single-core, it seems), 4.2-inch 854 x 480 display, Gingerbread, 8 megapixel back-illuminated Sony sensor with HD video capture, and a body that measures just 8.7mm at the thinnest point. Sony’s CES press conference is later today, so we might not have long to wait to get all the details on this one; in the meantime, follow the break for a quick promotional video Gagadget seems to have turned up.

[Thanks, SillentTroll]

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc breaks cover, announced at CES this week?

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc breaks cover, announced at CES this week? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you needed any more evidence that Sony is ramping up to launch a gaming system on a phone in the next few months, here you go: Japanese rag Asahi Shimbun says that the PlayStation Phone — which could be known as the Zeus Z1, Xperia Play, or something else altogether by the time it’s on store shelves — is expected in the spring of 2011 for a North American and European release. That lines up with virtually everything we’ve been hearing lately, and it’s also fortuitous timing considering that both CES and MWC are right around the corner; we don’t know what Sony Ericsson might have on tap for CES, but we definitely know they’re planning some new Xperia-branded models for MWC. There are many questions left unanswered — how (and if) any of this ties into the standalone PSP2, how gaming titles will be purchased, and how many models will be available that support the platform, just to name a few — but hopefully Sony can clear all that up here within the next few weeks.

Japanese paper pegs PlayStation Phone for spring launch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s really been big today on emphasizing that Gingerbread is better than ever for game development, and that’s already bearing itself out thanks to a page culled from the Android 2.3 SDK where we see a handful of new keycodes in the system clearly targeted for gaming: L1, L2, R1, R2, Select, Start, and so on. Does it have anything to do with the Sony Ericsson Zeus Z1 and all the PlayStation phone noise, though? We imagine it lays some of the groundwork, but all told, it’s hard to say — after all, PlayStation famously uses shapes for its primary controls, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Sony were working on a separate development environment of some sort for PlayStation-branded titles rather than letting it all flow through the official Android SDK proper. We also don’t yet know whether Sony Ericsson’s gaming efforts are coming in the Gingerbread or the Honeycomb timeframe (though we’re definitely expecting news next February at MWC), but one way or another, game devs should find it a little easier now to map the controls they need.

Android 2.3 definitely supports game controls, may (or may not) be PlayStation-related originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At this point, does it really surprise anyone that a new phone is leaking by way of a photo sharing site? We totally understand the conundrum: when you’re logged into a phone that you’re testing and you’re taking pictures, it’s so easy to upload ’em. And hey, you need to test the sharing functionality at some point anyway, right? At any rate, we love it, so we’re not going to complain that a few photos with Sony Ericsson Zeus clearly called out in the EXIF data have started showing up on Picasa. The four appropriately-labeled pictures all clock in at 5 megapixels, so we hope you weren’t expecting an N8-beating resolution here… but then again, when you’re heads-down in PlayStation-branded games for hours on end, do you really have time to be taking decent pictures anyway?

Sony Ericsson’s Zeus Z1 PlayStation phone contributes sample shots to Picasa originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Along with a Sony Ericsson Anzu, the James Bond of cellphones — alias Eldar Murtazin — claims to be playing with a Samsung GT-i9100 right now, calling it the “Galaxy 2” and saying it’s “so technically advanced” thanks in part to a dual-core processor. It seems like a long shot that this would be the Cortex-A9-based Orion since chips and development boards are just now being sampled — but considering how far in advance Murtazin tends to score phones, we can’t rule anything out.

One possible scenario is that the i9100 could be something akin to a TouchWiz-skinned version of the upcoming Nexus S, much as HTC’s Desire was essentially a Sense-skinned version of the Nexus One. Samsung, of course, has been pushing TouchWiz very hard across its Galaxy S line this year, and if the Nexus S is as beastly as the rumors are claiming it to be, there’s little doubt that Samsung would love to repurpose the hardware for something with a little more of its flavor thrown in. Speaking of the Galaxy S, keep in mind that the original European GSM model goes by the code GT-i9000, so it would stand to reason that the i9100 could be the proper successor — and with Gingerbread-based TouchWiz and a dual-core processor on board, we’d say they’re off to a strong start.

[Thanks, Peter]

Samsung i9100 is the dual-core Galaxy 2, sequel to the Galaxy S? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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