The rugged Disney Pix Jr. digital camera is a fun (and safe) way to introduce your children to digital photography. The model my son and I tested is based on the Pixar movie Cars, with Lightning McQueen splashed all over the front panel (a “Princess” version is available as well). My four-year-old had a terrific time learning and playing with this rugged 1.3-megapixel camera—particularly since I was there to help.
We’ve finally had a chance to play around at length with a very late pre-production version of Nokia’s N900 (retail units are already shipping, but not to our neck of the woods just yet) and we wanted to scribble out a few notes for you before taking delivery of a final build for a full review hopefully in the next week or two. Here are some highlights we’ve noticed so far:
Follow the break for more impressions and a quick rundown on video!
Gallery: Nokia N900 quick hands-on
Continue reading Nokia N900 quick hands-on
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Nokia N900 quick hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We’re really into the new influx of inexpensive CULV-based laptops that’s arrived with Windows 7, and just like the ASUS UL80Vt, we knew we had to check out the starts-at-$599 HP dm3t the second we saw the first leak. In many ways, it’s the perfect throw-it-in-a-bag-and-go portable on paper, with a sleek and rigid case design, a 1.3GHz Intel SU7300 Core 2 Duo processor, and a 13.3-inch screen, but there’s a big difference between loving a machine’s spec sheets and reviews and loving it in real life, so we spent a couple days playing with a spec’d-up $819 model — read on for our impressions.
Gallery: HP dm3t unboxing and hands-on
Continue reading HP dm3t review
Filed under: Laptops
HP dm3t review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Let’s be honest: it’s really hard to dislike Chumby. In fact, you feel almost compelled to root for any company bold enough to put out a product as unapologetically wacky as the original Chumby, a device that somehow managed to marry a soft, cuddly vinyl sphere with WiFi and a touchscreen. It didn’t make a lot of sense, and as far as we can tell, the company didn’t really intend it to — they basically threw it out there and said, “hey, so we’ve got this… uh, thing… now let’s see what you can do with it.” It was an open platform, Chumby encouraged hackers to dig in and understand the guts, and over time, a small-but-vibrant community of users and developers emerged with several hundred widgets capable of doing everything from showing the time to cracking a few Chuck Norris jokes.
A quirky, overpriced alarm clock without broad market appeal can only take you so far, though — someone’s eventually got to pay the bills. Enter the $100 Chumby One, Chumby’s first attempt to grow up and produce an affordable device that loses a little bit of the Chumby Classic’s insanity while carefully staying true to the company’s roots. Will this be Chumby’s ticket out of the geek niche and into mainstream living rooms and offices?
Gallery: Chumby One hands-on
Continue reading Chumby One review
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Chumby One review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Dubbing itself the “multimedia powerhouse” for T-Mobile’s expansive Android lineup, the Samsung Behold II has just been confirmed for that rumored November 18th launch on T-Mobile (still no word on price, though we’re hearing a predictable $200). The slate-style touchscreen handset has a 3.2-inch AMOLED display, and puts it to good use with a hearty skinning job on the part of Samsung, porting in most (but not all) of its TouchWiz UI — unfortunately for us, that silly cube menu made the cut. Underneath is Android 1.5, and what seems to be a pretty standard processor.
Hardware-wise there’s really nothing to complain about on this phone. It’s heavy, relatively thin (not iPhone-thin, but just fine), with solid materials and wonderfully tactile face buttons. The screen is everything you’d expect out of an AMOLED display, though high-resolution phones like the Droid dampen that enthusiasm somewhat. One wonderful Samsung addition to the traditional Android experience is a “real” camera button on the side, which can even register half-presses for focus. For someone who doesn’t want a physical keyboard, but doesn’t want their handset to feel like a toy (sorry, myTouch) there’s plenty to love. However, we’re more concerned about the software side of things. We’re not morally opposed to Samsung adding in TouchWiz, but we are afraid of anything that has the potential to slow down the OS, and on first glance we’d say it’s notably less responsive than stock Android. We’ll of course be going further in-depth to see just how usable this iteration is, but let us just put this out on the table: a virtual 3D cube to launch media apps is no way “intuitive,” “helpful” or “cool.” OK, maybe it’s kind of cool, but seriously Samsung, stop it. Check out our unboxing below.
Update: We added some video after the break. Behold the cube!
Continue reading Samsung Behold II hits T-Mobile on November 18th, unboxed today (now with video!)
Filed under: Cellphones
Samsung Behold II hits T-Mobile on November 18th, unboxed today (now with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
For a company with the most starched, buttoned-up roots of any major wireless manufacturer, RIM’s venture out of its enterprise comfort zone to the consumer space went amazingly smoothly thanks to the introduction of the original Pearl, a phone that’s still sold in a variety of colors, configurations, and carriers to this day. At some point, though, it became clear that the industry was moving toward touch — a space RIM had never dabbled in — and the trend gave birth to the Storm, a product that had obviously been rushed to market with countless software bugs and a dodgy SurePress concept that caused more problems than it solved. With prototypes floating around in the wild mere months after its predecessor’s release, RIM’s message was loud and clear earlier this year: “we need to fix the Storm, and we need to do it quickly.” Ultimately, it’s ended up taking the company just about a year to get the Storm2 to market, a product that attempts to tweak Waterloo’s touchscreen strategy just enough to undo a few mistakes and send it down the right path. Mission accomplished? Read on.
Continue reading BlackBerry Storm2 hands-on and impressions
Filed under: Cellphones
BlackBerry Storm2 hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
While great in concept, solar powered gadgets just never seem to be very practical at the end of the day. Regen’s tweak on the formula might help a little, by stuffing a battery into the solar panel itself, meaning you don’t have to keep your iPod plugged in for a painfully long trickle charge or juggle multiple elements to make it work (there’s a USB plug on the side). ReNu also has batteries in its various docking accessories as well, all of which can be charged by the ReNu panel or by AC power. It’s not going to turn the emerging market on its head, and at $199 for the ReNu unit by itself it’s not cheap either, but it seems like a logical direction for sun-fueled devices — and looks pretty cool doing it.
Filed under: Peripherals
Regen’s ReNu solar panel system in the flesh originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Want to see that new Saygus VPhone in action? Can’t get enough QWERTY in your Android? Enjoy videos shot amongst a crowd of screaming trade show attendees? Boy are you in luck. Check out our video hands-on of the handset after the break, and please excuse the noise.
Continue reading Saygus VPhone video hands-on
Filed under: Cellphones
Saygus VPhone video hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Imation was set to announce its first-ever Wireless USB hard drive a year ago, but it lost a dear friend shortly before it materialized and we’d heard nothing since then. Today Imation has returned — holding hands with its new partner, Staccato — to release the Pro WX 1.5 terabyte Wireless USB hard drive for both Windows and Mac. At $449.99, though, we thought to ourselves: does the Pro WX offer something extraordinary for the premium price? Or are you better off with a NAS device like Apple’s infamous Time Capsule? We ran some quick tests to find out — do read on for some juicy results.
Continue reading Imation Pro WX Wireless USB hard drive reviewed
Filed under: Storage
Imation Pro WX Wireless USB hard drive reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
After our mixed feelings on the HP Envy 13, we were excited but also a little bit scared to see the 13’s big brother, the Envy 15. It’s running a Core i7 processor clocked at 1.6GHz, and has 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 discrete graphics fronted by a 1920 x 1080 15.6-inch display despite the fact that it doesn’t have a built-in disc drive. Luckily there’s an external Blu-ray packed into the box (that’s a $225 option on top of the $1,800 base price), but most games and apps these days are available via download anyway, so it’s not that big of knock on your power-user cred. The unboxing experience is actually identical to that of the Envy 13 (quite elegant), and we were happy to see that when we fired up the laptop the trackpad seemed better configured than that of the pre-update Envy 13 we reviewed. We were less enthused to see that the IE comes pre-installed with HP and Norton toolbars — pretty janky for a premium machine — but luckily we rarely have to see the ugly sight of IE more than once on a new machine. For the most part this is just an Envy 13 bigged up, and that’s nothing to complain about.
Gallery: HP Envy 15 unboxing
Filed under: Laptops
HP Envy 15 unboxing and hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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