Hasta La Gadget!

Ever get the feeling that what you see on paper just isn’t going to be as good in person? That’s sort of how we felt today when we stopped by Gigabyte’s CeBIT booth to get a look at its newly announced T1000 netvertible. On the spec front the T1000 has everything we could possibly want in a netbook — a new 1.83GHz Atom N470, 2GB of RAM, a chiclet keyboard and a 1366 x 768-resolution multitouch display — but in our few minutes of use things were far from rainbows and butterflies. The resistive touch panel required a pretty firm press, and when in slate mode there’s no buttons (or accelerometer) for rotating the device. While we liked the chiclet keyboard, we’ll never understand why Gigabyte has kept the two mouse buttons on the sides of the touchpad. We realize that we may be jumping to conclusions too quickly here, so we’ll let you decide for yourselves with the help of a short video after the break.

Continue reading Gigabyte T1000 takes a new twist on life with Atom N470 and a multitouch display

Gigabyte T1000 takes a new twist on life with Atom N470 and a multitouch display originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Come on, you had to know that one of our first stops at CeBIT was going to be the ASUS booth to see if we could get a glimpse at the leaked 10-inch Eee PC 1018P and 1016P. Though they will be officially announced at ASUS’s press conference tomorrow we got some time to play around with the new aluminum netbooks, and they sure beat any of the plastic Eee PCs we’ve been groping for the past few years. The overall build quality feels great, and with the flush battery they are both seriously slim and light. We wish ASUS had equipped the systems with metal keyboards to match the expanded aluminum touchpads, but the plastic keys felt plenty sturdy under our fingers. As for specs, the placards claim that they will have the new Intel N470 processors (and some peculiar N455 and N475 CPU choices), 2GB of RAM and 10 hours of battery life. We’re still trying to figure out the difference between the two models, but our guess is that the 1016P will have 3G, while the 1018P sticks just to WiFi. Also, no confirmation yet on that rumored USB 3.0, but until we find out more details at tomorrow’s press conference we’ve got you covered with the hands-on pics and video below.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC 1018P and 1016P quick hands-on

ASUS Eee PC 1018P and 1016P quick hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s Aaron Woodman just pulled off a little surprise here at The Engadget Show: he brought out LG’s Windows Phone 7 Series pre-production prototype! The QWERTY slider is the first branded Windows Phone 7 Series device the world’s ever seen, and while the hardware and software are both obviously early, we can tell you a few things about it: it’s just a hair thicker than an iPhone or Nexus One, there are dedicated hardware camera, volume, and power buttons in addition to the back, home, and search buttons dictated by Windows Phone 7 Series, and we noticed a five megapixel camera with a flash on the back, along with a headphone jack. Can’t say much apart from that right now, since things are so early and everything is subject to change, but things are certainly moving along. It’s all going down on the show right now — see it on video after the break!

Continue reading Exclusive: First Windows Phone 7 Series partner device unveiled (with video!)

Exclusive: First Windows Phone 7 Series partner device unveiled (with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, it’s been available in Japan for quite some time, but this is the first chance we’ve gotten to really sit down and play with Nintendo’s “more communal” (as we overheard one PR rep describe it, given it’s propensity for more eyes comfortably viewing the screens) portable gaming experience, the DSi XL. So let’s get the comparisons out of the way: obvious volumetric differences aside, the maximum brightness versus the DSi seems to be slightly higher, and the stylus is inexplicably a handful of millimeters longer — not a big deal, but you’ll definitely figure it out when trying to stuff it into an older model. We’re not really a fan of the top lid being glossy again — we rather like the matte DSi lid, and this one seems even more fingerprint-coveting than its DS Lite predecessor. So with all that said, is the extra screen size worth it? Admittedly we do appreciate the extra room, and it comes without a cost to the picture clarity. The inherent tradeoff, however, is a complete inability to stuff this in our pockets — we had better luck with the Mini 5, to be blunt. You’ll be able to decide for yourself soon enough, but in the meantime, there’s pictures below and video after the break!

Continue reading Nintendo DSi XL hands-on

Nintendo DSi XL hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rejoice, owners of netbooks with Intel GMA 500 graphics: Flash Player 10.1 Beta 3 is here, complete with hardware video acceleration for your machines. That should make Hulu and YouTube HD usable on machines like the Sony VAIO P and VAIO X, the Nokia Booklet 3G, and the previous-generation Dell Mini 10. The new build also bring support for the Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator found in Pine Trail Atom machines like the newest Dell Mini 10 and HP Mini 210 — support we found sorely lacking when we reviewed the Dell. We just tried it out on our review HP Mini 210 and it managed 720p YouTube just fine, although 1080p was a no-go — we’re waiting on some updated Broadcom drivers though, so don’t take that as gospel quite yet. We’ll have much more on that in our full Mini 210 review; for now you should all get downloading and let us know how it’s going in comments.

Update: Success! We updated the Broadcom drivers on our Dell Mini 10 and downloaded the fresh Flash 10.1 Beta 3, and as you can see in the video below 1080p YouTube HD content plays smoothly. It’s almost everything we’ve ever dreamed of for our netbooks. We are still having issues with the HP Mini 210 which uses the older BCM70012 Crystal HD card, but will have an update on that in our full review soon.

Continue reading Flash 10.1 beta 3 released, adds support for Intel GMA 500 and Broadcom Crystal HD chips (Update: 1080p Flash on a netbook!)

Flash 10.1 beta 3 released, adds support for Intel GMA 500 and Broadcom Crystal HD chips (Update: 1080p Flash on a netbook!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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