Hasta La Gadget!

Now we don’t have much more to go on here than some analyst chatter and a lengthy article from TechCrunch, but if you believe what you read, a major player has just dropped Windows Phone 7 devices from its roadmap. And that player is Dell. According to Jonathan Goldberg, an telecom analyst at Deutsche Bank, the only remaining partners currently working on Windows Phone 7 handsets are HTC, Samsung, and LG. If this is true (and that’s a big if), that means that the seriously awesome looking Dell Lightning that we spied in leaks recently will never see the light of day — as a WP7 device, at least.

We already knew that HP was out of the game (instead focusing on webOS phones), but the casual suggestion that Dell has made for the door here is somewhat suspect. The company itself hasn’t made any statements (we’ve reached out but have yet to hear back), and while Dell has certainly concentrated a lot of effort on Android devices recently, its partnership with Microsoft is long-standing (despite dabbling in the world of open source). If the story turns out to be true, it could spell mixed (if not outright bad) tidings for the Windows Phone 7 launch, which Goldberg alleges may cost Microsoft upwards of half a billion dollars — no small fee. Losing two of the biggest computer-makers in the world can’t feel very good when you’re trying to fight your way back to relevancy, but at least on the bright side, neither HP nor Dell have a track record of making anything other than heroically mediocre handsets. Take this all with a grain of salt right now, however, as the author of the TechCrunch article provides no source for the statements from Goldberg, and… well, he’s an analyst, and they’re prone to making up all kinds of crazy things. We’re investigating, and will let you know as soon as we have more info.

Update: We’ve been pinged back by Dell’s Matt Parretta, and he was 100 percent clear that Dell was most certainly still part of the Windows Phone 7 game. In the company’s words:

Any reports, or speculation, that report Dell will not support Windows Phone 7 are false… Microsoft announced Dell as a supporting partner at this year’s Mobile World Congress and nothing’s changed. We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft on Windows Phone 7, and are looking forward to bringing customers amazing mobile experiences.

Furthermore, the analyst in question here (Jonathan Goldberg) has also reached out to us to clarify his statements, saying that he believes Dell is still a partner on Windows Phone 7, just not a launch partner. Dell was mum on release schedules, but one thing is clear — they intend to follow through on this collaboration.

Dell dropping Windows Phone 7 devices from its roadmap? (update: Dell responds, is definitely still in the game) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We had some fun playing with LG’s Magic Motion gesture remote at CES this past January, which lets you change channels with a flick of the wrist, and now we’re learning a little more about its fancy innards. Hillcrest Labs, the company behind the Loop mouse/bracelet, is proudly proclaiming that its Freespace tech is what makes LG’s remote so magical in the first place. Hillcrest also would like to take this opportunity to point out that Sony has licensed its technology as well, and given we’re but a few weeks away from the PlayStation Move launch, many are concluding that gadget has some Freespace up in it too. However, given Hillcrest’s nasty patent dispute with Nintendo over the Wiimote, it’s possible this is just Sony covering its ample posterior against a similar lawsuit. Or, this could go all the way back to the tech that allows the DualShock 3 to detect movement. (Remember trying to play that dragon game just with motion controls? Man, that was hard.)

Continue reading Hillcrest Labs brings LG’s Magic Motion remote to life, cheekily points out that Sony uses it, too

Hillcrest Labs brings LG’s Magic Motion remote to life, cheekily points out that Sony uses it, too originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you wade through LG’s alphabet soup of upcoming WinPho 7 goodies, you might recall that several of them seem to be headed directly for AT&T later this year. Evidence for one of them in particular — the C900 landscape slider — just got a little stronger this evening on news that a phone by the very same model code has just been hooked up with FCC approval in the past few hours. Indeed, a quick look at the SAR report shows that we’ve got WCDMA bands II and V here, which means it’ll work like a champ on AT&T; unfortunately LG is (and always has been) particularly awesome at making its ID label documents useless for identifying phones, so there isn’t much other evidence to go on from this. Needless to say, though, we’re convinced it’s going to be a very interesting fourth quarter of the year for the Microsoft camp.

LG’s C900 Windows Phone 7 handset for AT&T gets FCC approval originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, BEJGW910, we meet at last… or should we call you the LG GW910 with Windows Phone 7? Oh, don’t act surprised, we’ve had you on our radar for some time now. You’re not as sneaky as you might think, you know that? Sure, you thought your FCC meeting was a private one, but that foul temptress is not one to keep things to herself, and lookie, she’s put some surprisingly decent shots online. External and internal, we’re afraid. She also tells us you’re wired for AT&T, is that to say you’re in cahoots with Ma Bell? We’ve got all the photos ourselves now in a gallery below, so don’t try and deny the rendez-vous. Oh, and your user manual showing off a “multitasking” button? We jumped ahead to page 25 and noticed the LG eXpo nod — it’s just a cobbled-together draft manual, a ploy to trick us. Good joke, you — now tell us about your evil twin brother, C900.

LG GW910 slider turns heads at FCC; likes AT&T, Windows Phone 7, and long walks on the beach originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re prepping for a Windows Phone 7 purchase later this year and the Cetus doesn’t really do it for you, we understand — not everyone can live without a physical keyboard, and devices like the Touch Pro2 have gotten us used to the idea that Windows Mobile and great QWERTY go hand-in-hand. To that end, we present to you the LG C900, a rounded landscape slider equipped with a four-row keyboard and a simplified two-button capacitive layout beneath the screen paired with a chrome Windows key. Notably, this is the first time we’ve seen carrier branding on Windows Phone 7’s home screen in the wild — you can see AT&T’s logo prominently displayed as a tile in one of the pictures in the gallery after the break. We’re not sure we’re digging the matte plasticky look up front, but to each his own, we suppose.

Exclusive: LG C900 for AT&T has Windows Phone 7, shows off a little carrier branding originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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