Hasta La Gadget!

Considering rumors we’ve heard of a VGA display, we’d assumed that Nokia’s E6 would probably have a large touchscreen — but these shots we’ve just received look… well, a little different. Instead, it seems that Espoo’s planning to gently massage the winning portrait QWERTY formula already well established by the E71 and E72, bumping out a proper big brother to the E5. Around back, you see an 8 megapixel camera (possibly the same EDoF unit that’s in the E7) along with a dual LED flash; on front, that could very well be a VGA display, we suppose, considering the uptick in pixel density that everyone’s been pushing the past year. If we had to guess, this puppy is a lock for MWC — but in light of the crazy rumors floating around Nokia the past few days, all bets are off.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Nokia E6 in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been ribbing the Pre 2 lately for being so far past its prime that a launch of any kind on Verizon is starting to seem implausible — but it looks like these guys might still be willing to throw it out on shelves for a little while. The latest rumor, via an internal product page at a third party retailer, says that the phone will launch in “all channels” on February 17th… just in time for it to be made even less appealing by whatever new gear HP shows off at its event on the 9th. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong hardware — but hey, if you absolutely must have webOS 2.0 as soon as possible on a carrier-branded device on the States, this thing is still your only way to ride.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Palm Pre 2 launching on Verizon February 17th? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jack Wong is a very lucky guy. Or you can say he’s very unfortunate. On one hand, his eight-year-old Meizu label — literally meaning “the captivating tribe” — has rapidly become one of the most popular brands amongst Chinese gadget lovers, yet all he’s producing right now is just the one phone: the M9. On the other hand, the now-discontinued M8 had notoriously caught unwanted attention from Apple, and even the recent M9 launch saw accusations of Meizu hiring people to stand in line. But the latter points are irrelevant for now — what we’re really interested in is how a teensy MP3 player factory managed to outpace its numerous competitors to become a reputable smartphone maker with a huge fan base. To help us understand what drives the company, we decided to pay Meizu a visit. Go on, you know where to click.

Continue reading Exclusive: A day trip to Meizu’s factory (video)

Exclusive: A day trip to Meizu’s factory (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rumors of Amazon either purchasing Netflix or launching a competing option have been circling and now one of our readers says he’s seeing an unlimited video streaming section to complement the current Amazon VOD options. That’s a nice bonus for the $79 / year package that currently adds a few free shipping bonuses and it would be cheaper on a yearly basis than Netflix’s Watch Instantly ($95.88.) As seen above and in the gallery, it consists of “unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of 5,000 movies and TV shows” with selections that mirror the Watch Instantly catalog closely. Resolution is apparently limited to a “pretty solid” 480p SD, but there’s no word on audio or subtitle options. We’ll wait to hear if anyone else is seeing a similar page before assuming a wide rollout, but it certainly appears that there could finally be a viable competitor to the Netflix juggernaut.

Update: We weren’t able to pull up the option on any of our Prime-enabled accounts and from the comments it doesn’t appear any of you were either. According to our tipster, the option has disappeared from his page as well. One other interesting note came from commenter vfiz, who found that several variations of the primeinstantvideos.com domain name were registered by Amazon-owned DPReview January 5.

[Thanks, Pavel]

Amazon rolling out Netflix-like unlimited video streaming for Prime subscribers? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barnes & Noble may be selling millions of Nook products, but it’s sounding like the 3G variant hasn’t really done its part to help those figures. We’ve received hard evidence from within B&N that the Nook is being discontinued, with sales to seemingly continue until stock is exhausted. The outfit is encouraging retail partners to not send out any bulk orders for the Nook 3G, as there simply won’t be sufficient quantities to fulfill those orders. Of course, we’re told that the company never actually received a huge amount of Nook 3G bulk orders to begin with, so maybe WiFi really is everywhere these days. At any rate, grab yourself a Nook 3G post-haste if you’ve been thinking it over — once they’re gone, they’re gone for good. Or, you could wait for a next-gen version with a Pearl display. Just sayin’.

Update: We received clarification that the discontinuation isn’t due to the lack of bulk sales, they’re just the first casualty of a dwindling supply.

Exclusive: Barnes & Noble phasing out the Nook 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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