Hasta La Gadget!

Does the almost Pre-esque shape of this beast look vaguely familiar? It should, because it matches up nicely with the outline of the Samsung Cetus we saw in the FCC a little while back. Indeed, we’re told this is the Cetus i917 destined for AT&T, featuring Windows Phone 7 in a glossy, black, curved shell that should fit nicely in those new skinny pants you just overpaid for. We don’t know when this is hitting exactly, but we suspect everyone involved — Microsoft, AT&T, and Samsung — wants to have this on shelves in time for the holiday season. Hit up the gallery below for a couple more shots.

Exclusive: Samsung Cetus i917 bows for AT&T, shows off its Windows Phone 7 ways originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Remember this scandalous little leak from back in June? It looks to have been validated today, as imagery of Nokia’s MeeGo (or is it Symbian^4?)-powered N9 QWERTY slider has emerged over in China. As usual with these things, we can’t be certain that this device is in fact part of Nokia’s roadmap and not just another creative hardware emulation, but it sure seems to have our old buddy Eldar Murtazin convinced. Seeing it with clear N9 branding, we can now say that the previously unknown Nokia slider was more likely the N8-01, a keyboard-equipped version of the (still) upcoming N8. The source of this N9 leak reports that it’s not in its final retail shape, as it doesn’t match up to “the latest drawings,” but is apparently planned for a release in the 48th week (i.e. beginning of December) of this year. The prototype, built in Finland, is said to have an entirely metallic construction (more aluminum would be our guess), with only the keyboard buttons, USB cover, and a few decorative parts being plastic. See more of it, including a thorough teardown, in the gallery below.

Update: A friendly mole of ours ran this handset’s serial number through an internal Nokia system and has confirmed it as a Nokia prototype. He was also able to uncover an RM-680 product type classification (further distancing this from the RM-626 slider) and a 0595571 product code. Add those to the “Prototype Build B2” and “Property of Nokia” labeling inside the phone’s battery compartment, and you’ve got yourself a very strong candidate for the real deal here.

Update 2: A closer look at the display reveals that this is running something that bears a heavy resemblance to the MeeGo screens we’ve seen so far — and if you run the product code through Google, you see some Maemo 6-related bug tracking results, which of course has since become MeeGo. Good stuff, eh? Thanks, Sockatume!

Continue reading Nokia’s QWERTY-slidin’ N9 shows up in the wilds of China (update: running MeeGo!)

Nokia’s QWERTY-slidin’ N9 shows up in the wilds of China (update: running MeeGo!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Eldar Murtazin  |  Baidu  | Email this | Comments

Better bring an umbrella if you’re going out, because the Windows Phone 7 hardware leaks are really starting to rain down. We’ve so far peeked pre-release handsets from ASUS, HTC (twice), and LG, and now Samsung is pitching in with what looks like a device fated to dance on retail shelves. Details are, as usual, scarce on the ground, but the angular aesthetics suggest it isn’t the AT&T-bound Cetus that recently graced the FCC. Taken together with the physical separation of the Windows-branded Start key, however, they do rather resemble what we’ve seen on ASUS’ hardware, which might suggest that there is some undercurrent of cohesive body design that Microsoft is pushing out to its hardware partners. Or maybe we’re just grasping at straws to kill the time until this OS finally launches. One more pic after the break.

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 leak mania continues with new Samsung prototype

Windows Phone 7 leak mania continues with new Samsung prototype originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Pocketnow  |  @andrejt (Twitter)  | Email this | Comments

Fleshing out HTC’s device codenames can be difficult even after they launch, seeing how the codenames rarely make the leap to retail branding — and the company certainly isn’t making it easy with its alleged first round of Windows Phone 7 gear, either. We’re pretty sure this device we’re looking at here — clearly labeled Mozart — is exactly the same as the Schubert we saw a few days back… physically, anyway, which leaves open the possibility that the radio (or some other aspect of the internals) is different on this one. After all, Microsoft is looking to launch WinPho 7 in a bunch of countries on a bunch of carriers with a bunch of manufacturers on day one, so a couple different tri-band 3G options (for the midrange devices, anyway) would make good sense. Either that, or… you know, one of these codenames is just flat-out wrong.

HTC Schubert Windows Phone 7 handset spied again — or is it the Mozart? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PocketNow  |  @Xmoo (via Twitter)  | Email this | Comments

If you compare this shot of the bespoke R2-D2 Droid 2 to the background of Verizon’s teaser site (inset), you can see this is almost certainly the genuine article — and we knew that Verizon intended to intro this thing at the Star Wars-themed Celebration V conference kicking off today, so this is all making a lot of sense. We admit, we were kind of hoping for a graphic that was a little more… you know, R2-D2-shaped, but when it comes to astromech-themed gear, we’ll take what we can get.

[Thanks, Brian D.]

Droid 2 R2-D2 edition spied in the wild, ready to repair your X-wing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Verizon, @r2d2central (via Twitter)  | Email this | Comments