Hasta La Gadget!

No heart-stopping new revelations here, but it’s always good to get an official indication of a company’s plans for the forthcoming year. Samsung, it appears, is firmly set on building and selling a tablet of some sort, whether it be a Joojoo-like buttonless wonder or a more conventional keyboard-equipped device. There’s also a note on multitouch and 3D, with Sammy promising to introduce more mainstream displays with support for them, as well as converting all its laptop and desktop screens to LED backlighting from the middle of 2010 onwards. We’re happy to see CCFL consigned to the annals of history, but Mr. Samsung, if you really want to excite us good and proper, you’d add an O to the front of that monitor technology and stick to the same schedule.

[Thanks, Daniel]

Samsung planning tablets, multitouch, 3D, making LED backlighting standard originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Who’s up for some more Intel roadmap rumoring? The latest scuttlebutt from “notebook players” over in the far East is that the chip giant has finally settled on names, speeds, and prices for its first three Arrandale CPUs, which are expected to arrive in the first half of 2010. The Core i5-520UM and Core i7-620UM both run at 1.06GHz, while the top Core i7-640UM model speeds ahead at 1.2GHz, with bulk-buying prices of $241, $278, and $305 per unit of each processor. Even if the processing speeds might not impress on paper, these 32nm chips splice two processing cores, the memory controller, and graphics engine all into the same package and thereby deliver major power savings. Platform pricing is expected to remain at around $500 for netbooks, while the ultrathins these chips are intended for should hit the $600 to $800 range… if Lord Intel wills it so.

Filed under: Laptops

Intel Arrandale chips detailed, priced and dated? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Right on schedule with the whispers, T-Mobile lifted the veil off of its new price plan tier structure, Even More and Even More Plus, and from the looks of it all those leaks were pretty much spot-on. The traditional Even More plan is a two-year commitment and discounted phone, with unlimited individual prices starting at $59 per month and going up to $99 if you want unlimited messaging and text, too. Even More Plus scrapes the device discount but offers unlimited individual prices at $49 for voice / $79 for everything. It looks like the only major differentiator is the subsidized handset, but here’s where the numbers don’t add up: even with the steep $350 discount on myTouch 3G, factoring in that $20 premium would pay for the phone during the 18th month, leaving six months and $120 of extra payments left that have no obvious justification to us. Additionally the FlexPay / equipment installment plan is now available, letting you break up the cost of your phone into interest-free monthly bills. It seems Even More’s subsidized phones are offered over four installments (e.g. $37 per month for the $150 MyTouch 3G) while Even More Plus’ is two installments (e.g. $25 per month for the same device at the $500 full price). Our initial takeaway from the price tiers is that T-Mobile is doing what it can to drive its consumers away from the traditional and over to the non-traditional (for US, at least) Even More Plus plan, but hey, we’re not gonna argue over a beneficial contract-free plan, even if monthly phone payments keep us paying the company for at least 20 months. So T-Mo, any other Project Dark surprises in the cards? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Filed under: Cellphones

T-Mobile officially unveils $99 Even More, $79 Even More Plus plans and equipment installment option originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As much as we’d like to put stock in Satoru Miyashita’s forecast, we’re still hesitant to believe that we’re just two Consumer Electronic Shows away from seeing big-screen OLED TVs for sale. After Sony’s polarizing XEL-1 hit the scene around two years ago, we’ve seen an anemic amount of action in the commercial OLED TV space. Sure, we’ve heard promise after promise, but we’ve still got no solid evidence that a large-screen set is anywhere near a Sam’s Club shelf. In a recent interview with the general manager of Seiko Epson’s Core Technology Development Center, OLED-Info managed to get this out of the exec: “We see 2012 as being the year that 37″+ OLED TVs will be launched by various makers, and 2015 as the year that sales will really take off for this market.” He’s referring to the year in which OEMs will begin to use its new inkjet-printing approach to making OLED TVs, which will hopefully allow for easier development of larger panels. ‘Til then, we suppose we’ll just have to be content with using the Zune HD as our primary television.

Filed under: Displays

Seiko Epson envisions large inkjet-printed OLED TVs, unicorns for all in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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