Hasta La Gadget!

Right around this time last year, Texas Instruments was busy showing off its OMAP 3 platform, which enabled 720p playback from a mobile phone. At this year’s MWC, we’ve got a real live handset recording 720p, and TI upping the ante once more with a chip that handles 1080p. For those still with us after being blasted with resolutions, the predictably titled OMAP 4 aims to bring 1080p support, 20 megapixel imaging and “approximately a week of audio play time” to mobiles and MIDs that house it. Granted, TI also calls this stuff “future-proof,” so don’t believe it’s totally incapable of uttering some pretty outlandish stuff. At the heart of the platform is a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 chip, a programmable multimedia engine based on TI’s C64x DSP and a POWERVR SGX540 graphics engine. We’re told that it’ll play nice with Linux variants such as Android and LiMo, Symbian and Windows Mobile, though it’ll have to be mighty impressive to outgun NVIDIA’s Tegra. Battle on, we say.

[Via Linux Devices]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

TI’s OMAP 4 bringing 1080p support to smartphones and MIDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We associate the Hyundai name more closely with cars and ten-year warranties than we do phones in these parts of the world, but Hyundai Mobile does a little business selling low-cost phones in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (cars… phones… right, makes sense). We had a chance to check out some of the offerings today, and yeah, let’s just put it this way: some of these devices are a bit off the beaten path. Pictured above from left to right are the MB-400 (bearing absolutely no resemblance to any existing device), the MB-910 touchscreen watch phone, and the lovely MB-105 “Chico” (which — interesting fact — features a whopping 50-message SMS storage capacity). The Chico wasn’t functional for us, but follow the break for some hands-on time with the unfortunate iPod rip and one of the nicer watch phones we’ve seen come to market. Odd couple, isn’t it?

Continue reading Hyundai’s phones are creatively ridiculous

Filed under: Cellphones

Hyundai’s phones are creatively ridiculous originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MySpace on Tuesday announced a custom application for the Palm Pre and Nokia’s Symbian S60 devices. The news basically means that there will be a MySpace app for the Pre and S60 phone, as there is for almost every other mobile platform.

“We want our users to be able to access MySpace from any device,” John Faith, vice president and general manager of MySpace Mobile, said in a statement. “We are committed to building apps for platforms we feel are groundbreaking to offer our users the best possible on-the-go MySpace experience.”

The social networking site will also launch a revamped version of its mobile Web site at m.myspace.com and wap.myspace.com. User interface options have been optimized for devices with screen sizes 176 pixels wide and larger. It supports 13 languages and is localized for 29 countries.

In related news, cell phone analyst Sascha Segan discusses why the European Palm Pre multitasks better than Sprint’s on pcmag.com.

The Sony-Ericsson Idou concept phone is one of the most buzzed-about devices of this year’s Mobile World Congress. Introduced on Sunday night, the phone offers an impressive 12.1-megapixel camera.

The handset also offers a number of entertainment features and runs a yet-unnamed version of the Symbian OS. It also boasts a 3.5-inch, 640-by-480 resistive touch screen. Beyond that, the details are fairly sparse–including the actual model name, which will most likely be changed before release.

Our mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, did manage to get some hands-on time with the device. Check out a video of the Idou in action, after the jump.

Acer’s new Tempo lineup of middling Windows Mobile 6.1 sets isn’t going to steal the show from the TG01, the OmniaHD, or the Magic, but it’s not like they’re total failures — they’re just way behind the curve. Engadget Spanish did the honors, and it looks like Acer would have been better off spending the time getting these ready to ship with 6.5 instead of the amusingly quaint Microsoft Bob-like Acer Shell it’s come up with to skin 6.1 — all it’s missing is the dog. Add in a general sense of lagginess and a stubborn resistive touchscreen, and we’d say this round is better off skipped. So much for those budding Acer fanboys. More galleries and a video after the break.

Continue reading Acer F900, M900, X960, and DX900 hands-on with video

Filed under: Cellphones

Acer F900, M900, X960, and DX900 hands-on with video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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