Hasta La Gadget!

Keeping frighteningly close tabs on the current locations of your friends, enemies, ex-lovers, bookies, and dealers is one of the hotter trends in the mobile space these days with products like Loopt, Whrrl, and Helio’s Buddy Beacon making location-based contact tracking a breeze. Now that Google’s getting into the game, though, that business model might start to dry up for everyone else — especially considering that its so-called Latitude tech will be built into Android going forward and available for every other platform that supports Google Maps. T-Mobile has announced that Latitude will be built into the G1 starting with the RC33 maintenance release that’s getting rolled out to customers this week — and yes, granted, it’s not Cupcake, but at least we have some new functionality to toy around with. And yes, we promise we won’t mention virtual keyboards in this post… er, dangit. Video of Latitude in action after the break.

Continue reading T-Mobile G1’s RC33 update includes Google Latitude

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Handhelds

T-Mobile G1’s RC33 update includes Google Latitude originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile’s Neville Ray, senior vice president of engineering and operations at the carrier, said that as the year progresses, the company aims to release more G-series smartphones like the Android-powered G1—as well as other HSDPA-capable models for its fledgling 3G data network, according to FierceWireless.

Ray also said in the interview that so far, the carrier has rolled out 3G services to 130 cities in 27 markets, though he didn’t give specifics. Back in December, HTC (the company that builds the G1 for T-Mobile) projected that they would sell one million of the handsets last year. Samsung also announced plans to sell an Android-powered smartphone.

T-Mobile’s just launched the Shadow (Shadow II), the successor to the HTC Shadow, which features a customized UI on top of Windows Mobile 6.1. It’s quite similar to the original in just about all respects.

The scroll wheel’s still there, and the T-Mobile customized UI is still there, the sliding SureType half-QWERTY keyboard is still there and the Windows Mobile Standard (non-touchscreen) edition OS is still there. I can’t call this the same phone, but it’s pretty damn similar. It does have support for T-Mobile Unlimited HotSpot Calling, which is the calling over Wi-Fi (@ Home) system you can sign up for.

The first thing we’ve noticed is that the phone is light—we thought the battery was missing at first until it booted right up. The keys are bulged and feel good enough (looks the same as the first), and the scroll wheel flipped between items with only slight lag. There’s still Windows Mobile sluggishness throughout, which you’ll notice as you’re dumped from the T-Mobile customized front screen whenever you’re trying to do some task.

The new Shadow doesn’t seem to push the bar of Windows Mobile as much as the original Shadow did, but it’s not a bad phone—it’s just a Windows Mobile phone. It’s portable, light, and somewhat solid. It’s just too bad that it uses Windows Mobile Standard instead of Professional. This is about as good a WM Smartphone as you’re gonna get before Windows Mobile 6.5 hits later this year, which is what you should be waiting for instead of making a purchase now. But if were looking for a phone that’s really black, there’s a reason why they call this the Shadow. Seriously. Cause it’s black. Really black. Ninjas could use this and not be detected.

We tell ya, these KIRFs are getting good. Real good. If we didn’t know any better, we’d assume the HTO HD was a bona fide original, and even though we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this thing is a direct rip of HTC’s MAX 4G, we’re still itching to hold one. In fact, the lucky crew over at Engadget Chinese were able to do just that, and they’ve hosted up a hands-on gallery to prove it. Specs wise, the handset features a 4-inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera (with AutoFocus), 8GB of internal storage, an SDHC expansion slot, digital TV tuner, GPS / FM radio modules, Bluetooth, WiFi and a standard 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. Availability is still unknown (big shock there, right?), though it’ll reportedly be priced around 3,000 Chinese yuan, or $439 in greenbacks. In other words, this really might be the most expensive, high quality knockoff we’ve seen to date. Hit the read link and decide for yourself.

Filed under: Cellphones

Keepin’ it real fake, part CLXXVII: HTO HD satisfactorily apes MAX 4G originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It is happening again. Once more, the smooth, sultry sounds of Josh, Paul, and Nilay have come to whisk you away to that magical super-land known as the Engadget Podcast. This week, you can hear the editors sound off on a variety of scintillating subjects, including President Obama’s BlackBerry, Apple’s legal threats, Kodak’s new home entertainment ventures, and the (presumed) new HTC G2. So crank up the iTunes visualizer and prepare to be freaked out.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Never Gonna Give You Up

00:01:10 – Engadget’s Netflix HD streaming shootout
00:18:18 – Kodak’s Theatre HD Player with gyro-based Pointer Remote unboxed and reviewed
00:29:25 – HTC’s G2 “Sapphire 2.0” caught slumming in the wilds
00:40:03 – Apple on smartphone competition: “if others rip off our intellectual property, we will go after them.”
00:54:19 – Confirmed: Obama gets his BlackBerry, no Sectera Edge in sight
01:01:43 – Best Buy Advice

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Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 130 – 01.23.2009: Angry rant edition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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