Hasta La Gadget!

Unbagging is a new feature inspired by one of our favorite Flickr groups: what’s in your bag? The premise is simple — empty out your bag, arrange what’s inside, and snap a photo. Engadget will be taking a look inside the bags of some of the people we know and love in the tech world, combining our two favorite pastimes of gadgetry and voyeurism. Want to be included? Send an email to unbagging [at] engadget [dot] com with your submissions!

Today’s Unbagging installment comes from Peek CEO (and all around bon vivant) Amol Sarva. Clearly a man who loves the written word, you can see no less than three separate pieces of reading material here (though of course, two are made from dead trees — do they still count?). If you want to see the whole list, click on through after the break. For a larger picture, as well as a group of reader submissions we’ve gotten, hit the gallery!

Continue reading Unbagging: Peek CEO Amol Sarva

Unbagging: Peek CEO Amol Sarva originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The original Asus Eee PC took on the challenging North American market for a small notebook PC and was so successful that it created a new wave of product that’s turned the PC business upside down. And although Asus has since released over a dozen permutations of its original Eee PC notebook as well as several desktop models both with and without integrated monitors, its next big test will be a keyboard.

A top-slice reincarnation of the pioneering Commodore 64, the Eee Keyboard has a full complement of ports and can run Windows, but its two standout features are a 5″ LCD that replaces the numeric keyboard and wireless high-definition output to a television. Much like the original Eee PC, it is unlikely that the Eee Keyboard would be anyone’s primary PC. In fact, Asus’s keyboard-footprint computer will have to overcome a number the same problems PCs and other information products like WebTV have had in the living room. But Asus may be hitting the market at a critical inflection point — for a few reasons.

Continue reading Switched On: A keyboard PC seeks to Eee-peat success

Filed under: Laptops

Switched On: A keyboard PC seeks to Eee-peat success originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not every day you see something thoroughly distinct in the laptop scene — or even barely off the beaten path — so we were quite happy to behold Dell’s new Latitude Z 600 outside of the narrow confines of the FCC. The machine combines a 16-inch 1600 x 900 display with a Core 2 Duo processor and a thin (0.57-inch) and light (4.5 pounds) chassis — a rather rare trifecta. Dell’s gone with premium soft touch materials, a large multitouch touchpad, a 2 megapixel webcam with included security and document scanning (like business cards) software, and a rather novel capacitive “EdgeTouch” sensor on the side that can be tapped for a quick launch bar of apps. Remember that 802.11g radio that had us scratching our heads in the FCC docs? Well it’s actually one of two WiFi radios in the machine (the main radio is 802.11n, just like mother used to make), and belongs to Latitude ON, that instant-boot ARM-based Linux system that co-exists inside the computer (which first made an appearance in the Latitude E series). For security reasons it doesn’t share a lick of data with the main OS, but it can hook up to Exchange and handle basic browsing tasks. In addition to its quick-booting properties, the low-power nature of the ARM chipset means you can get “days” of computing out of the machine, despite the 16-inch screen the battery is up against. But that’s not all! Dell has built in a UWB radio for communicating with an optional wireless base dock (out in November) that pumps out DVI and USB, and there are also induction charging contacts on the bottom of the laptop for use with an optional induction charging stand. Other features include a built-in Smart Card reader and room for dual SSD drives.

We got to play around with the laptop briefly, and it doesn’t just pile on the features — it’s really a pretty tight design from Dell, and oozes quality. Some of the features make a bit less sense, like the EdgeTouch sensor, but if you’re going to go all out on a laptop for executives, you might as well really go all out, right? The keyboard is one of the best laptop keyboards we’ve played with in a while, the touchpad is expansive, and the machine doesn’t seem brittle despite its wild surface-area-to-thickness ratio. The screen did seem a little dim to our eyes, but it was mercifully matte, and that 2 megapixel camera up top really comes in handy with Dell’s bundled software, reading and deciphering a business card of ours without a problem. It’s a three way tie for neatest feature between UWB, Latitude ON and induction charging, but we’d probably have to go with UWB — unlike Toshiba’s similar solution, which relies on a dongle, Dell’s built-in implementation actually makes a lot of sense for a premium laptop. It was also surprisingly quick at pairing with the wireless dock, and there’s no harm done by pulling the laptop out of range of UWB — a quick screen flicker and it’s back to regular. Our biggest downers about the laptop probably have to do with the odd color choice (a bit too personal of a preference to be made a default) and the understandable but painfully sky-high $2,000+ pricetag.

Update: Smarmy infomercial and in-depth look at Latitude ON now posted after the break.

Continue reading Dell’s Latitude Z 600 is a 16-inch thin-and-light, makes overcompensated CEOs out of us all (update: video!)

Filed under: Laptops

Dell’s Latitude Z 600 is a 16-inch thin-and-light, makes overcompensated CEOs out of us all (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dyson. Just the mere mention of the name conjures up a litany of emotions, though we suspect the most common feeling associated with it is “eh, too expensive for a vacuum.” For years now, Dyson has managed to make an otherwise drab sector exciting, with its array of vacuums (and hand dryers, to be fair) being amongst the only ones out there that gadget nerds could actually get into. The eldritch designs, promises of never-ending suction and stratospherically high price tags have helped Dyson garner an almost cult-like following, but at long last, it seems the outfit is looking to slide into homes of the somewhat less affluent. Granted, $399 for a vac ain’t exactly cheap, but considering that the DC23 Turbinehead is the outfit’s cheapest canister ever, we couldn’t help but give it a spin. Head on past the break for a few impressions.

Continue reading Dyson DC23 Turbinehead impressions

Filed under: Household

Dyson DC23 Turbinehead impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Several months have passed since our last encounter with Project Natal, Microsoft’s controller-free, gesture-based interface. Developer enthusiasm and rumored release dates aside, since that time there hasn’t been much in the way of new, concrete details or any title announcements. That didn’t stop Kudo Tsunoda and gang from coming to Tokyo Game Show to give the Japanese audience a taste of the title. We managed to get ourselves some more time with the system, which included previous demos Ricochet and Burnout Paradise, along with newcomers Beautiful Katamari and Space Invaders Extreme. This time around, things felt a bit more glitchy than before, with some weird graphical maladies around our virtual wrists and a few occasions where recalibration was required (which is simply accomplished by covering up the sensor with your hand for a couple seconds). Our Engadget Japan correspondent Ittousai couldn’t get his hair to detect, but Tsunoda inferred that it was something they were working on as the project continued. Going through the menus, we spotted Lumines among the other games on the console — Tsunoda wouldn’t comment on it, but he did note that adding Natal support isn’t something that’s likely to be patched into existing titles. Care to take another peek at what you’ll look like when Natal eventually comes to your living room? Video demonstration after the break.

Continue reading Video: Project Natal hands-on goes round two with Katamari Damacy, Space Invaders

Filed under: Gaming

Video: Project Natal hands-on goes round two with Katamari Damacy, Space Invaders originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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