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Feb 15

ZTE Amigo, Blade, and Skate hands-on

Posted in: hands-on, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, Today's Chili

ZTE outed several new sets — and a tablet — at MWC 2011, so we went to grab some specs and pics of the Blade, Skate, and the Amigo (from left to right). The ZTE Skate is the top of the line product in this group with Android 2.3 — though, the placard at the stand has been blanked out — triple-band GSM, HSPA in 1900 / 2100Mhz range, a 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive display, 5 megapixel cam, and likely the smallest keyboard we’ve ever seen, seriously, have a peek at the gallery. The Blade, which as our favorite in the group, runs Android 2.2, is downgraded to a 3 megapixel camera, a 3.5-inch display, quad-band GSM and 900 / 2100Mhz HSPA. The Amigo — what may be the lowliest as far as numbers are concerned — still has decent specs such as a 3.2-inch display, triple band GSM, 1900 / 2100 HSPA, and a side-sliding QWERTY keypad. The Blade and Skate both have great build quality, the screens are really bright and easily seen, the Amigo appears a bit more washed out and the housing build quality feels very cheap. The Skate is definitely the winner in the bells and whistles category, but unless you can swap out the onscreen keyboard it would definitely get a pass — and again, check out Joanna’s finger modeling in the gallery for proof. Enjoy the giant glossy gallery.

Gallery: ZTE Amigo, Blade, and Skate hands-on

ZTE Amigo, Blade, and Skate hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15

See the new Windows Phone 7 features in motion (video)

Posted in: kinect, Microsoft, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, Today's Chili, video, windows phone 7, WindowsPhone7, Wp7

Sure, you clung to every word we typed yesterday at Steve Ballmer’s MWC keynote, where a suite of new Windows Phone 7 features were announced. But sometimes seeing is believing, sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words, and sometimes just watching a video is simply more fun. Microsoft has you covered, revealing a number of clips detailing the new Kinect “experience,” multitasking, and IE9. They’re all embedded below, so click on through, won’t you?

Continue reading See the new Windows Phone 7 features in motion (video)

See the new Windows Phone 7 features in motion (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15

Live from Eric Schmidt’s MWC 2011 keynote

Posted in: Android, froyo, gingerbread, Google, GoogleAndroid, honeycomb, LiveBlog, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, Today's Chili

Ballmer and Elop were quite the pair during the Microsoft keynote yesterday, so let’s say the bar’s been set pretty high for Eric Schmidt. But that’s fine, the now-former CEO of Google has a knack for lively (if not downright controversial at times) speeches. This is the first time we’ve seen him talk since he stepped away from Babysitter (his words) to Executive Chairman, and the Android of today is a few flavors improved from the 2.1 Eclair that had launched a little before his MWC 2010 keynote — so needless to say, we’re excited for what he has to say today. We’ll be reporting live from Fira, so stay tuned — the fun should start around 11:45AM ET!

Continue reading Live from Eric Schmidt’s MWC 2011 keynote

Live from Eric Schmidt’s MWC 2011 keynote originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15

Hands-On With HTC Incredible S

Posted in: Android, Mwc2011, Phones, Today's Chili

BARCELONA — Amidst a spew of product announcements comes HTC’s new flagship phone, the Incredible S. If you already have the Droid Incredible S, it may look familiar, but the HTC-branded version is actually pretty different.

First, it has HTC’s lovely Sense UI, this time built on top of Android 2.2. Sense makes the whole Android experience much slicker and more intuitive to use. Coupled with the spectacular screen, a four-inch Super LED with a 800 x 480 resolution (the Droid has a 3.7-inch OLED display), swiping around is a lot of fun. A 1GHz Qualcomm CPU, 768MB RAM and a gig of internal storage complete the computer part, and then we get on to the cameras.

Up front is a 1.3MP webcam, and around the back is an 8MP, autofocus behemoth, also capable of shooting 720p video.

Flip the Incredible S on its side and not only does the image rotate, as you’d expect, but the little light-up capacitive buttons on the side also rotate to stay “upright”. It’s a nice touch.

Despite its bigger screen, the Incredible S feels pretty slim and light, and I’d be happy to put one in my pocket. Unfortunately, the HTC stand at the Mobile World Congress has everything wired up tight to screeching alarms, so I left the display unit where it was. Available in the second quarter of the year.

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Feb 15

Qualcomm’s ultrasonic pen demo transcribes from paper to device (video)

Posted in: demo, hands-on, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, qualcomm, Today's Chili, touch, video, Wireless

LG’s Netflix-lovin’ Revolution wasn’t the only standout demonstration at Qualcomm’s MWC booth — the company also cut out a bit of space to showcase a wild new ultrasonic pen that’s able to transcribe writing on paper directly into one’s phone, tablet or laptop. The gist of it is simple: the pen can be equipped with an actual ink pen or a simple nub, and there’s a battery-powered transceiver inside. Using standard, off-the-shelf microphones on a mobile device, your future phone or tablet could pick up vibrations from the pen with a radius of around 30 centimeters.

Underlying Epos software is used to convert vibration and coordinate information into text, and from there, any ‘ole text app can be used to field the results. We were even shown a brief demo of a prototype language translation app that enabled the demonstrator to write a sentence on paper beside the phone, and have the phone itself take in the English phrase, convert it to text, and then translate into a foreign tongue. It’s a fairly impressive feat, and there’s some pretty obvious usage case scenarios here — this could easily reinvent the art of note taking in class, where those who prefer to jot down reminders on paper will be able to log those same bullet points on their laptop as they scribble. Vid’s after the break, per usual.

Gallery: Qualcomm / Epos ultrasonic pen handwriting demo at MWC 2011

Continue reading Qualcomm’s ultrasonic pen demo transcribes from paper to device (video)

Qualcomm’s ultrasonic pen demo transcribes from paper to device (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15

HTC Flyer: A Tablet With a Pressure Sensitive Pen

Posted in: Android, gingerbread, HTC, Mwc2011, Tablets and E-Readers, Today's Chili

BARCELONA — HTC’s take on tablets is one of the most interesting at this year’s Mobile World Congress. The little seven-inch aluminum unibody package comes with a pressure-sensitive stylus. This might be enough to set the Flyer apart in the increasingly crowded (and dull) “me too” Android tablet world.

Inside the fat (415 gram) little box is a 1.5GHz single-core processor, 1GB RAM and 32GB storage. There is also an SD-slot to add more. Round back there’s a 5MP camera, and on the front panel there’s a 1.3MP webcam. The screen gives a rather respectable 1024 x 600 resolution, and is your usual multitouch panel. These are still handmade prototypes, so the final version is likely to be lighter and thinner.

But we came for the pen, right? Because a capacitive panel doesn’t register pressure, the pen does the measuring instead, and passes the information wirelessly back to the tablet. This is clearly meant for handwriting recognition (the tablet will ship with Evernote built in), but is also perfect for painting and drawing apps. Using a stylus with a capacitive screen is a great way to draw, but the lack of pressure-controlled line thickness and other parameters means it’ll never rival a proper graphics pad.

The Flyer will launch in the second half of the year, and will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. What, no Honeycomb? That will come later, as an over-the-air upgrade. Because HTC uses its own heavily tweaked Sense UI in its Android handsets, the interface is more suited to a tablet than that of, say, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. In fact, time needed to tweak the brand new Honeycomb is the reason that the Flyer will ship without it.

As for price, HTC isn’t saying. Keep it cheap, though, and this Kindle-sized, pocket-friendly could make a great artist’s sketchbook.

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Feb 15

Video: Hands-On With PlayStation Phone

Posted in: Games, Mwc2011, Phones, playstation, psp, Sony Ericsson, Today's Chili

BARCELONA, Spain — Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play is the phone we have wanted ever since Sony’s PSP was invented. It is, in any meaningful way, the first official PSP phone, and we got to play with it at the Mobile World Congress. How does it do?

Pretty well. With the gamepad tucked out of the way, the Play is a fairly humdrum Android phone, running 2.3 Gingerbread on a Snapdragon processor and equipped with a 5-MP camera. As a phone, it is perfectly fine.

But slide that pad out, and things get fun, fast. You get a D-pad, the four familiar PlayStation “shape” buttons, start and select buttons, and a home button that mimics the regular one next to the screen. There are also two touchpads and a pair of shoulder buttons — around back, behind the screen.

To drive the graphics, the Play has its own GPU, the 1-GHz Adreno 205. This allows the phone to push the polygons around and display them at 60 fps. Here you can see it in action, along with me getting my ass kicked in the preinstalled Bruce Lee game:

Holding it like this, you forget immediately that it is a phone. The buttons are fine, although if you were playing a Streetfighter-style game, those D-pad rolling special moves would be a little tricky. The shoulder buttons are easy to reach, even for my big hands, and the screen hinge is solid enough that things don’t flop around whilst playing.

Games will come from the Android Market, and there will be a separate PlayStation Store for buying old PS1 games, which will run on the Play.

It’s impressive, but I’m worried that it will be too expensive to be successful. Amazon.de lists it at 650 euro, which converts to $880. That’s a lot of cash, and even Sony Ericsson’s promise of 50 launch titles might not be enough to distract you from the sticker price. The launch date has yet to be announced, but could be as early as March.

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Feb 15

HTC Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S video hands-on

Posted in: hands-on, HTC, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, Today's Chili, video

Okay, by now you’ve likely seen most if not all of HTC’s monstrous MWC 2011 launch (HTC Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S), but we’d be remiss in our duties if we didn’t complete the video tours. Sadly the HTC Salsa and ChaCha weren’t ready to play just yet — the software isn’t quite ready for primetime — so they had to remain behind a safe layer of glass. We did, however, get a quick overview of each of the S devices mentioned above and have some pretty galleries of them, too. So enjoy the show.

Gallery: HTC Incredible S first hands-on

Gallery: HTC Desire S first hands-on

Gallery: HTC Wildfire S first hands-on

Continue reading HTC Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S video hands-on

HTC Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S video hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15

Samsung Galaxy Ace, Gio, Fit, and mini gather for a mega hands-on

Posted in: Android, froyo, hands-on, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, samsung, smartphone, Today's Chili, video

You didn’t think Samsung just brought its new high-end Galaxy S II to Barcelona, did you? Nope, it also packed a few of those new budget Android 2.2 smartphones — the Galaxy Gio, Galaxy Fit, Galaxy Ace, and Galaxy mini — in its luggage. We’re aware that’s a lot of Galaxy, but there are, of course, a couple of key features that differentiate the low-end phones. Hit the break for our short impressions of the four and a brief video of our favorite.

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Gio and Ace hands-on

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Fit and mini hands-on

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Ace, Gio, Fit, and mini gather for a mega hands-on

Samsung Galaxy Ace, Gio, Fit, and mini gather for a mega hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 15

Android-powered LG Revolution caught streaming Netflix at MWC (video)

Posted in: Android, demo, Google, GoogleAndroid, hands-on, LG, Movies, mwc, mwc 2011, Mwc2011, netflix, qualcomm, security, smartphone, snapdragon, stream, streaming, Today's Chili, video, watch instantly, WatchInstantly

Well, well — what have we here? That up above is LG’s Revolution, a Snapdragon-powered Android superphone. What’s inside is no normal Snapdragon, though. It’s actually a newfangled chip that isn’t shipping to consumers just yet, which includes DRM libraries at a hardware level that serve to satisfy paranoid movie execs. The good news is that Qualcomm has actually whipped up a solution that’ll finally bring Watch Instantly to Android; the bad news is that existing smartphones — even existing Snapdragon devices — will not be able to utilize the app. Without new hardware, the Android version of the Netflix app simply won’t function, and no one at Qualcomm was willing to tell us when these Netflix-friendly Snapdragon chips would begin to ship out.

Whenever that fateful day arrives, though, Snapdragon devices with HDMI sockets will be able to beam that content right to their HDTV — the company’s hardware is HDCP-approved, so there’s no sweat when it comes to watching content on the big screen. On-site representatives made clear that both the phone and the app were for demonstration purposes only, but we’d be shocked if LG’s handset shipped without this compatibility. The demo we saw was smooth as butter, and the app itself looked glorious on the Revolution’s 4.3-inch touchscreen. See for yourself in the video just past the break.

Gallery: LG Revolution streams Netflix at MWC 2011