Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung’s beautiful Super AMOLED panels are becoming more and more common in mobile devices, but they’re not as common as they could be if there were more of the things flying out of Samsung Mobile Display factories. Predictably that’s set to change in 2011, with SMD planning to fulfill its promise and bring another production facility online, while other competitors in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore will ramp up their own AMOLED facilities in the coming year. Meanwhile, China is said to be working on its OLED supply chain as well, meaning those displays of the passive matrix variety will also be flying off of assembly lines soon. So, 2011 may still not be the year of a chicken in every pot, but it could be the year of glowy organic goo in every smartphone.

AMOLED shortage to become a surplus in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 15:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re guessing that this newfangled SmartPOP feature works a lot like Lenovo’s Constant Connect (or perhaps LG’s own Air Sync?), but either way, the feature set is still fairly innovative. On the surface, LG is today introducing its X170 netbook — a 10.1-incher with an Atom N455 (or N550), 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphics. But it’s the accompanying SmartPOP feature that’s really worth a second glance; purportedly, the system utilizes Bluetooth 3.0 in order to connect to your LG phone (supported models haven’t been made public thus far) and do all sorts of things. Syncing your files and email is just the beginning — once you’re in, you can send an SMS, view contacts / files and dial a phone number from the comfort of your PC. We’re guessing that future uses will be somewhat more impressive than existing ones, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? Word on the street has this one going for just under $700 in South Korea, and we’re definitely hoping that mobile there is included for that price.

LG X170 netbook controls your phone, adds SmartPOP to the lexicon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 22:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What was merely an indistinct outline in August is today a bona fide retail product. Cowon has made its X7 PMP official over in South Korea, letting us take a gander at the spec sheet if not necessarily buy one just yet. A 4.3-inch touchscreen takes center stage, backed by up to 160GB of hard drive storage and a battery rated to last for 103 hours of music or 10 hours of video playback. An FM radio tuner, built-in speaker, and Bluetooth chip fill out the “retro modern” body, while the software front reveals DivX-encoded video compatibility and a smattering of your usual note-taking and utility apps. The standard 160GB model is going on sale for 339,000 KRW ($304), or if you’re a globetrotter and need a set of preinstalled dictionaries, it’ll set you back 379,000 KRW ($340). There’s no word on US availability just yet, but this thing didn’t go through the chore of getting certified with the FCC for nothing.

Continue reading Cowon X7 debuts in home market of Korea with 4.3-inch screen, American ambitions

Cowon X7 debuts in home market of Korea with 4.3-inch screen, American ambitions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 04:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know what really bugs us about this Samsung Galaxy S Femme handset? No, it’s not that it once again trudges out the tired cliché that women must love pink — it’s that it presumes gents can’t appreciate the benefits of Aveda’s Damage Remedy and Hand Relief creams. We totally can! And we’d love to spend some quality time with the Aveda advisor app, which comes bundled on a 4GB MicroSD card, letting it identify for us the particular products we need to buy to keep our skin and hair looking their best. But, according to the packaging, this 4-inch, Gorilla Glass-bearing smartphone isn’t for us. Sigh.

Samsung Galaxy S Femme bundles sexism in with your smartphone purchase originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though arguably the most exciting thing about Ocosmos’s five-inch Oak Trail handheld is the promise of a pocket Zerg rush, there’s a good bit more to the OCS-1 than gaming prowess — it claims to be able to replace a full mouse and keyboard with just the two “OMOS Keys” on the front. Though they look like Sidekick II-era directional pads, they’re actually stacked two levels tall, with a D-pad on top of an PlayStation Portable-style analog nub that click and slide in each of eight directions (and press in like gamepad analog sticks) for 34 functions in total. That’s before we consider there’s also a pair of shoulder buttons, a volume rocker, a sliding QWERTY keyboard and a capacitive touchscreen to boot — and did we mention that the OMOS Keys themselves have multiple user / game profiles?

Continue reading Ocosmos OCS-1 and O-Bar eyes-on, plus a smattering of prototype sliders (video)

Ocosmos OCS-1 and O-Bar eyes-on, plus a smattering of prototype sliders (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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