Hasta La Gadget!

When Logitech first introduced wireless peripherals, we’d be lucky if our alkaline cells lasted a week, but these days the firm’s low-power mice can go months on a charge. Now, the company’s taken the next logical step, and made a solar keyboard. With an ultra-slim 1/3-inch profile and a full slate of laptop-style chiclet keys, the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 isn’t your average rack of buttons to begin with, but the ambient light solar panels installed on the top of either side should mean you’ll never need to plug it in to recharge. That’s not a claim we’ll be able to test easily, of course, as the company tells us its low-power integrated circuits can theoretically run for three months even if you leave it in a dark desk drawer. It uses the same 2.4GHz Nano Unifying receiver as several other Logitech wireless products, too, meaning you’ll only need a single one of your netbook or set-top-boxes’ precious USB ports. That’s often a concern on MacBooks as well, though you can see from the prominent Windows key this particular product doesn’t quite have a Mac-friendly setup.

Though we’re obviously far away from being able to tell you how the solar panels fare in normal use, we’re typing up this article on one of the boards right now. So far, we’re loving the flat, firm feel of the slab and rounded finger-friendly indents on each key, though the QWERTY layout’s actually a little cramped for our tastes. We’ll let you know how it holds up over the long haul. Find it next month for $80, though, if you’re already sold.

Continue reading Logitech unveils wireless solar keyboard K750, does away with batteries for good

Logitech unveils wireless solar keyboard K750, does away with batteries for good originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Continue reading Nook Color first hands-on! (updated: with video)

Nook Color first hands-on! (updated: with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

26,000 people can’t be wrong, right? That’s the current tally of Leaf pre-orders that Nissan has collected from US and Japanese drivers excited by its all-electric hatchback. Yesterday, the car that’s built to plug into the same wall outlet as your toaster held its official pan-European launch party — with the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, and Portugal getting the first deliveries in early 2011 — and we were on site to grab a few closeup pictures and some precious time in the driver’s seat. American drivers should look out for a new set of keys in their mailbox this December, so there’s probably no better time than now to give them a preview of what they’re getting themselves into. Jump past the break for more on the Nissan Leaf.

Continue reading Nissan Leaf launches in Europe, takes us for a drive

Nissan Leaf launches in Europe, takes us for a drive originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Surprise of surprises! On the day that Europeans finally got to dig into the Windows Phone 7 cake in earnest, Twitter’s official app for the hot new platform has also gone live. We’ve downloaded it to our own WP7 device and are having a play around with it now. If you need a refresher as to what it looks like, check out the video after the break.

Update: Okay, we can neither log in nor get signed up at present, though others have clearly achieved the feat already. Twitter.com itself keeps alternating between its new and old versions, so we suspect there’s quite a bit of work going on behind the scenes at present. To answer your queries, loading time from the live tile menu to the top tweets page above is approximately three seconds, while scrolling is basically identical to the perfection available on WP7’s own apps. Swiping laterally gets you into Trends, Suggested, and Nearby categories which take a couple of moments to load up their tweets, but otherwise match the performance.

Exiting to the live tile menu throws you out of whatever you were doing and re-entering the app — as is par for the Windows Phone 7 course right now — means starting from scratch. The only way you can save you state is by locking the phone, which takes a second or two to resume when unlocked and returns you to the exact point you were at. Great, now let us in, Twitter!

Hold up, reader David Gordon points out that you can hit the live tile menu via the Windows/Start key and then return to Twitter through the Back button, yay, that works too.

Update 2: There are still errors being thrown up, but we finally got ourselves logged in. Well, it looks just like the vid promised it would and the app itself is working flawlessly, there are no processing delays that we can see. Oh, and there’s a landscape mode. Our only bugbear is that there’s no differentiation between your own tweets and those of your friends. Ah well, check out the gallery below.

Continue reading Official Twitter app for Windows Phone 7 goes live (update: hands-on)

Official Twitter app for Windows Phone 7 goes live (update: hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink @stuartmiles (Twitter)  |   | Email this | Comments

Yes, folks, it’s true: Engadget’s capable of scooping itself at its own reader meetup, as evidenced by the BlackBerry Style we just checked out at RIM’s booth here. The phone is pretty much what you’d expect from what you’ve seen in the shots so far, essentially a clamshell riff on the Curve line; to that end, we’d argue that it feels a little cheaper than your average Bold, but it still seems to be a marked improvement from the Pearl flips of days gone by — and at $99 on contract, we think that’s exactly the market they were likely going for. Interestingly, the keyboard looks more like a Bold component than a Curve one… and depending on the faction of BlackBerry users you fall into, that’s either a very good or a very bad thing. Like the old Pearl flips, the Style’s definitely large and in charge, boasting dimensions barely smaller than the Bold — when closed! Check out the gallery below.

BlackBerry Style first hands-on! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments