Hasta La Gadget!

Engadget Japanese is live at Tokyo’s Digital Content EXP0 2009 where we’ve gone eyes-on with Sony’s 360-degree 3D display prototype. Check the video (and sample image) after the break for a quick walk-around to see how Sony hopes the device can be used both commercially and in the home — we’re not talking HD here folks but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless.

Continue reading Sony’s 360-degree 3D prototype displays blown minds (video)

Filed under: Displays

Sony’s 360-degree 3D prototype displays blown minds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s here, folks. We’ll naturally have more impressions in the near future, but for now feast your eyes on the Samsung Moment and one of the least eventful unboxings of all time — Sprint sure isn’t packaging this like a premium handset, but at $179 we suppose it isn’t really pricing it like one either. The hardware itself might tell a different story, with a solid, hefty feel to it and great screen. So far our editors are divided on the keyboard, with Chris not being sure it meets up to the CLIQ’s standards, while this writer feels it’s far superior — not tiresome to press, but super clicky and very touch type-able. While we sort out this astonishing bit of intra-office drama, check out the unboxing shots in the gallery below. The phone goes on sale November 1st.

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung Moment unboxed! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There she blows, we’ll be getting hands-on and try to scrap together some impressions of the Nook if they let us touch it once this Q&A is done. The device is a bit thicker than some, and certainly looks minimal up front. The LCD is nice, but not overly bright, and that’s about all we spotted before it was snatched away. Check out the gallery for a few more fleeting shots and a look at a non-functioning prototype for a better idea of the unit’s shape.

Update: We got a closer look at the device, though they still haven’t let us touch it. The LCD seems very “passive,” and has a shallow viewing angle — obviously to gather more ambient light and save on battery. The interface appears relatively intuitive, but we’re a little confused and doubtful about the highlighting features — it brings up a software d-pad on screen, and seemed a little unwieldy, though we’ll only find out for ourselves when they actually let us get our grubby paws on the thing.

Update 2: We’ve got some video! It’s so very exciting, and can be found after the break.

Continue reading Barnes & Noble Nook’s first close-up (now with video!)

Filed under: Handhelds

Barnes & Noble Nook’s first close-up (now with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just took delivery of Apple’s new MacBook — it’s an interesting revision to the MacBook formula, built using the same unibody techniques as the Aluminum Pros but with white plastic. That means it feels much more solid than the previous plastic MacBooks: there’s zero flex when you pick it up by a corner, and the keyboard is nicely rigid. There’s a price for that heft, though — the battery is now sealed in, although we’re guessing it won’t be too hard to replace if you remove the soft-touch rubber bottom panel. Unlike the Pros, the screen is still set in by a plastic bezel instead of edge-to-edge glass, which means it’s a little less glossy overall — but make no mistake, it can still serve as a mirror in a pinch. Ports are looking pretty dismal — there’s no FireWire, no SD card slot, no dedicated line-in. Instead you get just two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, Mini DisplayPort, and a combo headphone / line-in jack. That’s pretty weak in a thousand-dollar machine. We’re going to spend some more time playing with this thing before we dish out a proper review, though — anything you want to know?

Filed under: Laptops

Apple’s new MacBook unboxing and hands-on! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wacom’s latest consumer graphics tablet, the Pen and Touch, is probably the best entry level pen tablet the company has yet made. The multi-touch functions, though, are way behind. I’ve been putting the tablet through rigorous paces for the past week. Here’s how it fared.

Wacom is the undisputed king of tablets and I have been using them for years, partly to combat wrist trouble (a pen is just more comfortable) and partly because they work nicely for digital drawing and photo editing. The latest Bamboos are sub-$100 models which improve on the last Bamboos and the previous Graphires in almost every way. The Pen and Touch model also mimics the multi-touch trackpad of the most recent MacBooks, with somewhat limited success.

First, the basics. In the box you get a tablet with an integrated USB cable (the previous models had a mini-USB socket so the cable could be removed) and a pen. The pen is more comfortable to hold than the old one, and you can now use the rocker-switch on the side without deforming your fingers into a rictus-claw. The “eraser” end is now a flat-ended cylinder instead of a rounded bump. This makes it feel better in use, but doesn’t change the functionality.

The touch-wheel and four touch buttons along the top of the previous generation Bamboo have been replaced by four buttons on the side (you can flip it to left or right-handed orientation). The buttons can all be assigned in the driver software, just as before. Finally for the pen, the surface is slightly smoother than the last gen, and feels a lot like paper. As I said, the pen tablet is Wacom’s best consumer model yet.

But the multi-touch isn’t quite there. You get most of the gestures you do with the MacBook pad, and the preference pane for configuration even has small animations to demo them, just like the Apple pane. You can scroll with two fingers, pinch to zoom and twist to rotate, but you don’t get to use any more than two fingers. There is one interesting extra, though. When using a finger to move the cursor, if you put another finger (or thumb) down next to it, it acts like you pressed the click button and the first finger than drags anything that it was over. In practice, it is just like clicking Apple’s full-pad buttons.

But the feel is slightly off. The larger sized pad is welcome, but somehow it always feels slightly wrong. It’s hard to describe, but it feels like the pad isn’t quite reading your fingers. Add to this the acceleration curve as your movement is translated (very different from the native trackpad) and it all feels a little jittery.

But this could easily be down to the software. I have had to reinstall the driver twice this week. A couple of days ago, clicking stopped working. Both the button assigned to left-click and tap-to-click with a finger were broken, although the pen worked fine. And a few minutes ago the cursor for the pen was stuck in the top-left of the screen, and even the picture in the preference window reflected this. Both times a reinstall corrected this, but it’s a little flaky.

Should you buy it? Sure. At $100 for a pen tablet, its a bargain. Add in the good-enough multi-touch pad and its a steal. It’s also one of the best ways to keep your wrists and shoulders injury free, the reason I bought this one even though I had the previous gen on the desk already. You can also buy touch-only and pen-only models for $70 each, or the double-sized Bamboo Fun for $200.

Product page [Wacom]

See Also:

• Wacom Tablets Get Multi-Touch, Gestures
• New Wacom Intuos Official, Feels Like Pen and Paper
• Wacom Bamboo Replaces Graphire