Hasta La Gadget!

Sonim, purveyors of insanely overbuilt handsets that are virtually guaranteed to survive far longer than you, is back at it again at MWC this year with the XP3300 Force. Though it looks a lot like the models that have come before it, the Force has a unique claim: it alleges to offer the longest talk time of any cellphone in the world at 20 to 24 hours, which can be traded in for 20 to 24 hours of continuous GPS tracking, along with 800 hours of standby. Sonim hangs on to its ruggedness chops by casting the Force in a fiberglass shell with 1.5 millimeters of Gorilla Glass over the display, all adding up to an IP-68-rated device that can withstand a two-meter drop onto concrete, two meters of submersion in wastewater (yes, not water, but wastewater), and temperatures ranging from 20 below zero to 55 degrees Celsius (-4 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit). Pricing and availability are yet to be announced; follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Sonim XP3300 Force claims insane ruggedness, longest talk time in the world

Sonim XP3300 Force claims insane ruggedness, longest talk time in the world originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, would you look at what we found chilling at Samsung’s booth here at MWC? Yep, it’s that Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 we heard about just the other day, and it’s one interesting tablet / media player hybrid. We’d be inclined to call this thing a Streak 5 or Acer 4.8 Iconia competitor, but it doesn’t have a trace of cellular or 3G connectivity. We were, however, able to confirm what it does have — it packs a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a 800 x 480-resolution display, a 5 megapixel camera with a flash, and a 2500mAH battery. On the software front, it runs Android 2.2 (although it will be upgradable to Gingerbread) and TouchWiz. Oh, and it has the full suite of Google applications (YouTube, Gmail, Google Chat, etc.) and access to the Market.

So, what’s it like? Well, it looks like an enlarged Galaxy Player (or what is now known as the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0), which really means it looks like Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab mashup. The white slippery back clearly looks like our Sprint Galaxy Tab, but the thinner design and rounded edges remind us of a Vibrant or Fascinate. It’s really a very “Samsung” device, and we don’t mean that in a bad way — the plastic build feels pretty solid and the screen seemed very high quality. As for performance, it seemed fairly quick and a preloaded video played rather smoothly. We wish we had more information on when this one was going to land stateside, but a rep on hand would only tell us that it will be hitting Korea this month and other countries soon. Check the break for a short hands-on look at this guy and the galleries below for some close up shots.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 preview (video)

Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though it’s billed strictly as a technology demo — not something we’ll necessarily see in any imminent over-the-air update — Microsoft showed off a pretty cool demo of how Windows Phone 7’s Xbox Live integration could take advantage of Kinect down the road at Steve Ballmer’s MWC keynote today. How, you ask? Using the Rally Ball game, a Windows Phone user was shown tossing balls to an on-screen character that’s controlled by someone else on an Xbox using a Kinect. Simple, yes — but perhaps as interesting as the Kinect aspect is the viability of real-time cross-platform gaming that Microsoft seems to be throwing its support behind. Seems like a good way to torture your friends into working out from thousands of miles away, doesn’t it?

Update: We have a video of this in action after the break!

Continue reading Microsoft Rally Ball demo shows Windows Phone 7, Kinect, Xbox Live living in perfect harmony (video)

Microsoft Rally Ball demo shows Windows Phone 7, Kinect, Xbox Live living in perfect harmony (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BARCELONA — Unlike its underwhelming Optimus Pad tablet, LG’s Optimus 3D cellphone is rather impressive. Its 4.3-inch screen is capable of displaying 3-D without the need for a pair of 3D glasses.

The Optimus runs Android 2.2 (which is user-upgradeable to 2.3), and the screen runs at 480 x 800 resolution. This is, according to the rather hopeful person who wrote the spec-card that accompanies the phone, enough for 1080p video. To be fair, this more likely refers to the HDMI-out capability, which will deliver 3-D video at 720p and regular 2-D at 1080p.

3-D images can be captured via the pair of cameras on the back, just like the Optimus Pad, but you can also view it right there on the phone. The display works a lot like the Nintendo 3DS, using lens-based trickery to send different images to each eye. The effect is surprisingly convincing, although it oddly seems to make the screen seem smaller. While I can become engrossed in a movie on an tablet set a few feet in front of me, to the extent that I forget I’m looking at such a small screen, the 3-D display is looked at, rather than looked into. Still, the 3-D-ness is convincing, and it will surely be great for gaming.

When looking at the screen from anywhere but close up, it looks like one of those novelty lenticular postcards from a museum gift-shop. This worried me for a moment, but it only happens in 3-D mode. When you return to normal phone use, the screen looks no different from any other.

Like the Optimus Pad, the Optimus 3D is built on a gimmick. And while shooting poor-quality 3-D video might be fun, it’s the games that will make or break this device. And my guess is “break:” Android is fragmented enough as it is. How many developers are going to make 3-D versions of their games, just for this phone?

See Also:

• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Hands-On: A Plastic Toy With a Gorgeous …
• Hands-On With Samsung’s Five-Inch iPod Touch Rival
• Hands-On With LG’s Eye-Crossing 3D Optimus Pad

Though he wouldn’t give an exact date, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer whittled down the availability window for the company’s first big update to Windows Phone 7 at his keynote address to the crowds gathered at Mobile World Congress today. The latest message is that it’ll be available in “early March,” which puts us precious few weeks away — more or less on track with what we’d been anticipating — bringing support for CDMA radios, copy and paste, and performance improvements. Hopefully that clears the way for the 7 Pro on Sprint, eh?

Windows Phone 7 update with copy and paste, CDMA support coming in ‘early March’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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