Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve witnessed a very interesting development cycle with the Zune HD, getting to witness the software at various early stages of development, instead of a completed device all at once. Our latest glimpse of the player is along the lines of what’s been cropping up the last week or so: wild transitions, fun motion graphics and plenty of beautiful media to show it all off with. We did get to touch the new keyboard briefly, and while there’s no telling what sort of predictive text Microsoft has worked in, since we only had a URL bar to work with, it’s a passable (and certainly beautiful) attempt to cram a full QWERTY touchscreen keyboard into such a small device. Reports are conflicting as to whether there will be a landscape keyboard in the final build of the device, but it’s been spotted in some iterations of the device — it didn’t show up when we tried to rotate the player, however.

Unfortunately, while the browser is up and running, the hotel we were at wasn’t able to offer us a working internet connection — hopefully we’ll be able to rectify that soon. For now hold tight, check out the gallery below and the peep the video after the break for a magical exploration of the Zune HD’s truly impressive interface.

Continue reading Zune HD video hands-on: chock-full of media edition

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune HD video hands-on: chock-full of media edition originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Google Wave dev preview hands-on and impressions

Filed under: Software

Google Wave dev preview hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That new BlackBerry Curve 8520 for T-Mobile is in the house, sucking down EDGE data like it’s going out of style (oh, right, it is). For a device that can be scored for $50 at Walmart as of tomorrow ($130 at T-Mobile stores), this is a surprisingly solid handset. The keyboard is classic BlackBerry goodness, and the overall heft gives us at least a little bit of assurance that the phone can hold up to wear and tear better than its predecessors. Most of the changes are for the better, like a trio of media keys up top and the rubberized sides, but we’re not completely sold on the touchpad. It works great when it works, but if it’s too clean or our thumb is at the exact wrong moisture level, we found that we kind of “stuck” to the pad instead of gliding across it. A bit of texturing could go a long way. We also found the QVGA screen to be pretty dim, which is particularly unfortunate in light of RIM’s higher-end, high-res wonders, but it’s certainly passable. We’re planning on spending some more time with the handset, testing that EDGE network to the limit, giving UMA time to handle some of legendary conversational stylings, and seeing how many Engadget Podcast episodes we can narcissistically cram onto the bundled 1GB microSD card.

In speaking with RIM, it’s quite clear that the decision to go EDGE was primarily based on price, along with the fact that T-Mobile’s 3G rollout is still lacking — it’s still a head scratcher to us, though. The spokesperson also seemed pretty confident that the new touchpad interface is the way of the future, and we get the feeling the BlackBerry’s legendary trackball isn’t long for this world. Check out a quick video hands-on after the break, or you could opt for some fine unboxing shots below.

Continue reading T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 unboxed and handled (with video!)

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 unboxed and handled (with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TeleNav has already launched its subscription turn-by-turn navigation service for the G1, so it stands to reason that official myTouch 3G support would be close behind — and sure enough, the company has announced that its GPS Navigator app will be available for download to T-Mobile’s second Android device starting tomorrow, August 5. The app features all of the goodies that TeleNav users have come to know and love, including traffic and incident monitoring with automatic rerouting, gas prices, business information, and a choice between 2D and 3D maps; additionally, you’ve got automatic day / night coloration, carpool lane and tollroad avoidance, and speech recognition for destination input — a big plus when you’re on the road and you need to keep distractions to a minimum.

We’ve been playing with a cut of GPS Navigator on our myTouch recently, and it delivers a totally usable car navigation experience — a perfect complement to the comprehensive pedestrian capabilities of Google Maps. Most of the warnings from our G1-based review of the application carry over here — you need true GPS reception, not merely cellular triangulation, so your phone will need a view of the sky to have a shot at picking up satellites (this also means that getting a location lock is a more time-consuming process, though it typically didn’t take longer than a few seconds to do its thing). We’re not digging how the colored lines that convey traffic information on highways flash; we’d rather they just stayed a solid color, the way most GPS systems handle it. We also found that the menus are a little wonky — bringing your finger in contact with a menu item and swiping up or down to scroll would occasionally trigger the first item you touched, which ends up being a fairly annoying bug in practice. All told, though, if you can justify the expense, your $10 a month is going to net you a genuinely reasonable way to consolidate all of your help-me-I’m-lost needs — whether by foot or by car — into a single device.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Transportation

TeleNav GPS Navigator comes to T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, we know you get most of your hot, breaking fridge news from our pals over at Fridgegadget, but if you’ll excuse us just this once as we bring to you news of LG’s latest and greatest: the “Ultra-Capacity 4-Door French-Door Refrigerator.” This little number not only has the “world’s largest” water and ice dispenser, but has push-button automatic sliding freezer drawers. Check out the enthralling video after the break — you won’t be sorry!

Continue reading LG’s magical sliding fridge drawers: how did we ever live without them?

Filed under: Household

LG’s magical sliding fridge drawers: how did we ever live without them? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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