Feb 17

Acer’s four other phones in the flesh, not powered on

Posted in: Features, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Acer made a lot of noise about launching “eight” handsets yesterday, but we only got hard details on the four Tempos — which was probably the wrong way to go, because the prototypes of the F1, white C1, L1, and the E1 due to launch later this year are way hotter. Too bad Acer won’t turn ’em on or tell us anything about them — we can see the F1 has a five megapixel camera, but the lack of a Windows Mobile 6.5-required hardware Start button on any of these doesn’t bode well. Check ’em all out in the gallery.

Gallery: Acer L1, C1, E1, F1 hands-on

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Acer’s four other phones in the flesh, not powered on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 17

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

Posted in: Features, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili, Windows Mobile, WindowsMobile

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.

Gallery: Acer F900 hands-on

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

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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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Feb 17

Android G2 Hands On: Close to Perfection

Posted in: Android, feature, hands-on, HTC, mwc, mwc09, smartphone, Today's Chili, top, video, vodafone

HTC and Google are getting closer to perfection with the new Android G2, the HTC Magic. Nice finish, great form factor. Check out our video, including the obligatory comparison with Apple’s iPhone, and hands-on impressions:

The bad news first: Apart from my gripes about the user interface—which are still there—there is one but. A big BUT, bigger than Ramona’s, the planetary lady with accidental moustache who serves the bocadillos down at one of the fair’s restaurants: The software keyboard. On this first touch, the keyboard felt cramped, probably a result of the screen size, which is smaller than the iPhone’s—which is the obvious soft keyboard reference, since it was the first one to implement a finger-touch software keyboard.

In addition to that, there’s an additional user interface problem, this time having to do with perception: Instead of popping up above your finger—like in the iPhone so you can clearly see what you pressed—the keys appear on the sides. They flash quickly as you press them, and I found it extremely distracting. They said that they put them on the sides not to obstruct the view, but knowing the over-the-key implementation in the iPhone’s software keyboard, it doesn’t make much sense. Furthermore, when you are typing with one finger only—like I often do—you will be obstructing the view of the flashing key with your finger. The reason: When you type on the right side of the keyboard, the flashing keys appear on the left. When you click on the right, they pop out on the left.

Other than this, the rest is great. There’s a new Google Mail feature to delete or classify mail in bulk, as well as a faster camera, which now can take video—which obviously means you can play back video as well. The rest of the interface and features is what you already have in the Android G1. However, what really steals the show here is the hardware itself.

HTC has got a very smooth phone, which feels great on your hands and in your pants’ pockets. While it’s sightly thicker than the iPhone, the narrower, rounded body, and weight makes it feel the same size. For sure, a lot less bulky than the G1, which looks like a brick next to this. And as you have seen in the shots, the final HTC Magic is quite pretty. Have no doubt: This thing alone will make many consumers put up with the less-than-ideal software keyboard.

Overall, the first feeling is that we got a potential winner here. If they can manage to make the software keyboard better, Apple will definitely have a formidable enemy in the Android G2.

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Feb 17

NVIDIA’s Tegra in the flesh, booting to Android and pumping out 1080p video

Posted in: Android, Features, hands-on, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, NVIDIA, tegra, Today's Chili

NVIDIA really has a technical wonder in the Tegra APX 2600 chipset, and is more than happy to show it off, with a myriad of tech demos on display here at MWC. Some of this they showed off back in June of last year, but it’s no less impressive — there aren’t really any mobile devices out there capable of this stuff right now. Still, we’re here for the new, and NIVIDA showed up with Android running on one of its proof-of-concept units, and with another unit pumping out 1080p video, with a claimed 10 hours of battery life at that task. NVIDIA says it took them just a few weeks to port Android to the system, and we found it already quite snappy and even usable on the capacitive touchscreen-ed device. We also saw the forthcoming Android-running Yulong N8 and IAC S2 Tegra APX phones, along with an untitled CompalCom set — they were all in non-working prototype form, but it’s clear this chipset isn’t just for MIDs. Check it all out in the videos after the break and the gallery below!

Gallery: NVIDIA’s Tegra in the flesh

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NVIDIA’s Tegra in the flesh, booting to Android and pumping out 1080p video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 17

Acer working on two Android phones to launch this year

Posted in: Android, breaking news, BreakingNews, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili

Alright, this one’s pure tradeshow silliness — when Engadget Spanish pressed the Acer rep at MWC about rumored plans to launch an Android handset, dude pulled out a notebook and whipped up a quick product roadmap, including the two mysterious “Android secret models” shown here. That’s all we know for now, but anything’s got to be better than the sad Tempos Acer launched yesterday — and hey, we also got the names of the four announced-but-not-revealed sets we’re due to see sometime later this year. One more pic of Acer’s secret diary after the break.

Continue reading Acer working on two Android phones to launch this year

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Acer working on two Android phones to launch this year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 17

LG doesn’t rock the WinMo boat, launches S60-powered KT770 on the downlow

Posted in: Features, hands-on, HandsOn, LG, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, slider, symbian, Today's Chili

In light of its fresh tie-up with Microsoft, we can understand how any LG smartphone not running WinMo might be perceived as a black sheep this week. Still, it bums us that the the company has launched its latest S60-powered handset — the KT770 slider — at MWC this week with little more than a brief mention on LG’s official MWC site and a couple of forlorn demo models stuffed in the corner of the company’s booth. The good news is we decided to make good on LG’s oversight and give this little beauty the love it deserves with a mention, a gallery, and a quick video of its tweaked S60 3.2-based UI in action.

The faux carbon fiber back is a little cheesy — particularly for a device that otherwise looks fairly businesslike — but with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, GPS, a WQVGA display, and a 5 megapixel camera on board, it’s hard to argue that this device can’t be competitive (put this up against the far bulkier, uglier N95, for example). The UI seemed reasonably responsive, and though we weren’t able to test the browser without a connection, we imagine the stock S60 apps work every bit as well as they do on Nokia fare. Check out the video after the break!

Continue reading LG doesn’t rock the WinMo boat, launches S60-powered KT770 on the downlow

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LG doesn’t rock the WinMo boat, launches S60-powered KT770 on the downlow originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 17

Ralph de la Vega says he was misquoted, doesn’t know of a Dell smartphone

Posted in: att, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, smartphone, Today's Chili

We just spoke with AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega who says that he’s been misquoted about Dell’s rumored aspirations to enter the smartphone market. As we suspected might be the case, he claims he’d been referring to the fact that he’d heard rumors of a Dell phone — you know, the same rumors we’ve all been hearing — and was simply commenting on that fact. Either that, or there’s a Dell smartphone running some futuristic S60 / Android hybrid in his pocket as we speak… one of the two.

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Ralph de la Vega says he was misquoted, doesn’t know of a Dell smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 17

How Not To Make a Touchscreen Phone

Posted in: mwc, mwc09, samsung, Today's Chili, top, touch, video

Samsung’s slogan here in Barcelona is “The Power of Touch.” It should have been “The Power to Drive You Freakin’ Bonkers” because their touch technology continues to be bad bad bad. BAD.

What’s wrong with these guys? Last year I tried the Omnia at IFA 2008, and said it had “a poorly designed interface, lousy response time, buggy software, and it felt cheap and fat on my hand.” The Samsung cellphones at the Mobile World Congress this year don’t feel cheap and fat, but the touch interface is equally as bad. It wasn’t just me. It was me trying, people around me trying, and booth people trying them for me.

In theory, the cellphones available to the public in a tech fair booth must be flawless, right? After all, everyone—visitors, partners, and press—will be trying them to get an impression on how they work. So, how these “touch” screens’ response could be so bad, often requiring multiple clicks to get the most basic click operation done? Is it the hardware? Is it the software? Is it bad luck? I don’t know, but it left me the same impression as last year hands on, which is just too bad because the cellphones have some other great qualities, specially the Omnia HD amazing AMOLED high resolution screen.

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Feb 17

Gigabyte’s S1200 and Smart Zone user interface on video

Posted in: Features, mwc, mwc 2009, mwc09, mwc2009, Today's Chili, Windows Mobile, windows mobile 6.5, WindowsMobile, WindowsMobile6.5, winmo

Same story, different company: yet another Windows Mobile ODM has broken down, taken the plunge, and invested some cash engineering its own unique skin for the platform. This time around it’s Gigabyte’s GSmart division with its “Smart Zone” UI, and to kick it off on the right foot, they’re grafting it onto the all-new S1200. We spent some time fiddling with the S1200 at MWC today, and we’re actually pretty impressed; it’s sleek, a wacky thin 11.4mm, narrow enough to comfortably fit in the smallest hands, and feels pretty well-built — and with full HSPA and a 3.1-inch WVGA display, it’s spec’d with the best of ’em. Gone are Gigabyte’s days of chunky plastic, thank goodness.

We talked to Gigabyte about its announcements, and it turns out they’ve designed both Smart Zone and the S1200 with aspirational feature phone users in mind — these are people who might not otherwise consider a smartphone because they’re worried about sacrificing style and ease of use in the process. To that end, the skin definitely seems to get the job done. The transition animations got choppy in places, but we felt immediately at ease with the swipe gestures for getting to different screens, and the graphics look particularly superb at these resolutions.

The S1200 launches this quarter in a variety of colors (it’s fashion-friendly, after all) with WiFi, a 528MHz Qualcomm core, 3 megapixel autofocus cam, a microSD slot to bump up the storage to something more usable than the 256MB built-in, and — perhaps most importantly — upgradeability to Windows Mobile 6.5. Follow the break to see it in action!

Continue reading Gigabyte’s S1200 and Smart Zone user interface on video

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Gigabyte’s S1200 and Smart Zone user interface on video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 17

Bluetooth Over Wi-Fi Zoomtastic Speed Shocks Our Pants Off

Posted in: bluetooth, mwc, mwc09, Today's Chili, top, wi-fi

If there’s a must-have mobile technology this year, that’s Bluetooth over Wi-Fi. Easy-to-establish, peer-to-peer Bluetooth connectivity seamlessly coupled with Wi-Fi speeds. As the video shows, the experience is perfect. I want this in my iPhone.

The new Bluetooth specification—technically denominated alternate MAC/PHY—will be official this April. And unlike other technologies, it won’t be in limbo for a while before reaching consumers. In fact, your phone may support it right now, according to Broadcom’s Mukul Suth: Some of their current production chips already have this ability and they will only require a software upgrade to implement it.

The alternate MAC/PHY method is quite clever: The two devices discover each other and shake hands using Bluetooth (being cellphones, computers, or any other shiny thing supporting the standard). When you start any file transfer, the communication gets passed to the Wi-Fi hardware layer, which will transfer your data at 54mbps. Once the transfer is over, Wi-Fi is disconnected and the control passes again to Bluetooth.

It just works. According to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, the standard will allow you to easily:

• Wirelessly bulk synchronize music libraries between PC and MP3 player
• Bulk download photos to a printer or PC
• Send video files from camera or phone to computer or television.

Sounds good to me. Having this easy-to-use, straightforward ability to just connect to any device and transfer information in a fast way, without needing any wireless network or access points, will be great.

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