Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen it powered down and had it dangled in front of us and now, four months after its launch, we’ve finally had a chance to play with a real, working Samsung Infuse 4G. This 4.5-inch superphone — the biggest Sammy has made to date — feels surprisingly light in the hands, despite its width. That’s largely thanks to its crazy-thin 8.99mm profile, along with a subtly textured backside. The Super AMOLED Plus display — the same kind found on the smaller Droid Charge — which promises to be brighter than Super AMOLED as well as easier to view in direct sunlight, is simply stunning. We were seriously impressed by the punchy colors and deep blacks, although that outdoor test will have to wait for another day.

Blessedly, Samsung lets those vibrant colors speak for themselves — it loaded the phone with Android 2.2 and abstained from saddling it with its TouchWiz UI made its TouchWiz UI less intrusive out of the box. The handset packs a single — not dual — core 1.2GHz processor, but you won’t notice or care how many cores it has unless you’re a benchmark junkie — the phone launches applications briskly, while the touchscreen is responsive and always precise. We noticed nary a delay as we swiped among the seven home screens and three application pages. Speaking of speed, this is AT&T’s first device to promise max speeds of 21 Mbps. Samsung held its press event in a New York City restaurant with poor reception, alas, and we have a feeling the crawling rates we observed off-camera don’t do this phone justice. We’re walking out of here with one of these bad boys, and we’re stoked to fully put it through its paces over the next few days. We’ll be back with an in-depth review, but in the meantime, have a gander at the gallery of close-up shots below.

Updated: Unlike the Inspire 4G, Captivate, and Aria, the Infuse 4G enables app sideloading and features the “Unknown Sources” menu item in the settings. Check out a photo of the appropriate settings screen in the updated gallery.

Samsung Infuse 4G hands-on (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 17:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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USB speakers aren’t exactly headline-grabbing gadgets these days, but the fact remains that most laptops could still use a little help on the audio end. If you’re in need of a quick fix for your weak-sounding machine, then Altec Lansing’s $49.95 Orbit USB Stereo (iML247) might be worth your consideration. As the name says for itself, both power and audio input are managed through one USB cord, meaning no batteries are required here. Better yet, when not in use, you can simply fold up the legs, stuff the cables into the hollow ends, and then twist the speakers together to form one smooth tube for storage. Of course, note that this Orbit won’t work with devices sporting the common 3.5mm headphone jack, and obviously don’t expect cinematic sound quality from these tiny canisters — hey, there’s always a trade-off. Hands-on pics in the gallery below.

Continue reading Altec Lansing’s Orbit USB Stereo trumps your laptop’s speakers, has split personality

Altec Lansing’s Orbit USB Stereo trumps your laptop’s speakers, has split personality originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 14:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew it was coming, but today at BlackBerry World 2011 we were treated to a demo of Android apps running natively on the PlayBook. The end result isn’t too far removed from what we saw with Myriad’s Alien Dalvik at Mobile World Congress. Android’s menu and home buttons are emulated using the standard PlayBook gestures, and the back button is replaced with an on-screen softkey. Of course, you’ll have to visit App World to download Android apps for the PlayBook when the Android Player (as it’s called) finally becomes available. And speaking of Android apps, the wildly popular Angry Birds is coming to the PlayBook as a native game – no cross-platform trickery required.

Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One Thunderbolt port on your new MacBook Pro? Pah. The new 27-inch iMac has twice that many — two. When we got ours out of the box we just had to do the natural thing: fire up as many pixels as possible. Two 30-inch Dell displays and a couple of dual-link DVI display adapters later and we have what you see above: a wide swath of LCD covering 11,878,400 pixels. Sure, any average desktop can do this, but how many all-in-ones can push that many dots? The iMac’s 27-inch, 2,560 x 1,440, LED-backlit IPS panel is definitely a highlight, but flanked by another two monsters the combination is, honestly, a little overwhelming. We tried working this way but only made it about 30 minutes before retreating to smaller fields of view.

Other tid-bits we’ve learned about the updated iMac: those who’d rather swipe than drag can now choose to order theirs with a Magic Trackpad instead of a Magic Mouse, though we’re sure Apple would surely be happy to sell you both. Additionally, the 21.5-inch model can now be configured with a 256GB SSD, just like its big bro. The bigger news, of course, is what’s on the inside, with updated Radeon HD graphics featuring GDDR5 memory and Sandy Bridge processors all-round. We’ll be back with a full review later to get a feel for just how powerful this thing is, but until then dig all those pixels in the video below.

Continue reading Apple iMac hands-on, with dual 30-inch displays! (video)

Apple iMac hands-on, with dual 30-inch displays! (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 11:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So we finally got our dirty little hands on RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone here at BlackBerry World 2011. It’s basically the old Bold but with a capacitive touchscreen and updated innards including a 1.2 GHz CPU, 768 MB of RAM, a GPU , HSPA+, and NFC support. From a design perspective it mixes BlackBerry’s traditional formula with iPhone 4-like materials (that familiar stainless steel rim). It certainly looks premium and feels lovely in the hand, and the keyboard is typical BlackBerry — which is to say fantastic. The screen is beautiful too, perfect to showcase that elusive new BlackBerry 7 OS. Still, we can’t shake the feeling that we’re looking at the device RIM should have shipped last summer instead of the lackluster Torch. We’ll have a hands on video up soon but for now take a peek at our gallery below.

Update: Our video is now live after the break.

Continue reading BlackBerry Bold 9900 hands-on (update: video)

BlackBerry Bold 9900 hands-on (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 12:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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