Hasta La Gadget!

Let’s be honest: with the size of a brick and a relatively short battery life, it’s no surprise that ITG’s xpPhone hasn’t quite dominated the smartphone market since its launch back in November. In fact, we haven’t even seen one in the wild, and we certainly wouldn’t have missed it if there ever was one on the street. That said, ITG hasn’t given up, as the company’s just announced its second-generation Windows-powered smartphone. The reason? Well, interestingly enough, ITG prefers Windows’ greater range of compatible software compared to those of mobile OSes, namely Android and iOS. Let’s just leave it at that for now.

Simply dubbed the xpPhone 2, this beast of a QWERTY slider packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 chip, along with 2GB RAM, up to 112GB of SSD storage, 4.3-inch display and compatibility with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 — obviously the latter OS will depend on its final release date. Not only has battery life been bumped up to around 18 hours of call time or 46 days on standby, but the phone’s also been slimmed down to 140mm x 73mm x 17.5mm, which is a huge improvement compared to its bulky predecessor. With the touch-friendly Windows 8 on board along with a non-underclocked CPU, we have a feeling that the xpPhone 2 will at least fare much better than Fujitsu’s F-07C; as for the rest, we shall see when it comes out in January next year. And no, it probably won’t run Crysis.

Update: Looks like we were misled by the company’s other promotional photos and thus mistakenly thought the xpPhone 2 will have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. This would explain the slimmer body then.

ITG xpPhone 2 to get some Windows 8 love, starts living large in January originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia has unveiled the Asha lineup, a spate of lower-end devices that run Series 40 and blur the line between featurephone and smartphone. The devices — named the 200, 201, 300 and 303, are all designed to encourage the “next billion” users to access the web, and seem directed toward emerging markets. The 200 includes an Easy Swap option that lets you throw in multiple SIM cards, and can offer up to 32GB of storage for media playback — 52 hours of it, in fact. It, along with the 201, have exceptionally loud speakers that work great for parties and those crazy all-nighters, though the latter lacks the multi-SIM support. Both of these phones will be available for €60 ($85); the 200 is going to ship before the end of the year, while the 201 will be ready for your purchase by Q1 2012. The 300 and 303 are the touchscreen handsets of the bunch; the 300 is a candybar with a numeric keypad and offers a 1GHz CPU, 5MP camera and 3G. It’ll be priced at €85 ($120) and will be available in Q4 2011. Similarly, the 303 offers the same types of features with a 2.6-inch display and full QWERTY experience, and should be ready before the end of the year for €115 (about $160).

All four Asha devices are made of polycarbonate and come with a Nokia Browser, which is powered by the cloud and compresses data by up to 90 percent, saving users from racking up excessive charges. Oh, and did we mention Angry Birds is coming to Series 40? Be sure to check out the vids for each Asha phone — as well as the press release — after the break.

Sharif Sakr and Dante Cesa contributed to this post.

Continue reading Nokia unveils Asha lineup, bringing Series 40 to emerging markets: 200, 201, 300, 303

Nokia unveils Asha lineup, bringing Series 40 to emerging markets: 200, 201, 300, 303 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 04:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What big, wireless brother wants, big, wireless brother gets. With its pay-as-you-go subsidiary already packing this particular piece of mobile kit, ’twas only a matter of time before Sprint got its hands on the Transform Ultra. Officially announced for the third place carrier today, Sammy’s Droid Charge with a QWERTY twist packs the usual array of mid-range specs. The 3.5-incher runs Android 2.3 atop a single-core 1GHz processor, with a VGA front facing / 3 megapixel rear camera, 512MB RAM, 2GB of storage and 1500mAh battery in tow. It’s no next gen, 4G beastie, but sometimes you just need a workhorse to get things done. Pricing and availability have yet to be released, although we’re sure that bit of crucial info’s right around the corner. Official presser awaits you after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Transform Ultra does the QWERTY slide for Sprint

Samsung Transform Ultra does the QWERTY slide for Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Where have all the split-keyboard phones gone? It’s been roughly six years since the days of the Nokia E70, a messaging device with an innovative form factor, but handsets with a similar mold have become extreme rarities in the market — if they even make it to the market at all (remember the MotoSplit?). LG’s hoping to gain some ground in this area by officially announcing the DoublePlay, a unique Android 2.3 handset with dual touchscreens and split QWERTY. Here’s the scoop: the DoublePlay’s powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU and offers a 5MP rear-facing camera capable of capturing 720p HD video. Where it gets interesting, however, is in the DoublePlay’s design — it uses a 3.5-inch display on top, sliding out to reveal a 2-inch internal screen sandwiched in between both halves of the keyboard. As it turns out, both screens can be used separately or in tandem with each other, depending on your needs. No pricing or availability was specifically announced, but the presser appears to coincide with the 2011 National Texting Championship beginning October 26th, so the phone will likely launch around the same time. Perhaps we have a device here that’ll be a legend in another seven years?

Continue reading LG DoublePlay makes its official intro on T-Mobile, offers dual-screens and split keyboard

LG DoublePlay makes its official intro on T-Mobile, offers dual-screens and split keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Being on Verizon’s 4G LTE network and having a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard have been mutually exclusive features until now. Today, the carrier revealed the Samsung Stratosphere, a 4G smartphone with a slide-out keyboard.

The Stratosphere targets the business professional crowd, the folks who used to use (or still use) BlackBerries, but are looking to make the transition to Android or iOS.

The Stratosphere features a 4-inch Super AMOLED display with a 5-row QWERTY keyboard underneath. It runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) on a 1 GHz Hummingbird processor. For the biz folk, the smartphone supports some B2B services like Microsoft Exchange Active Sync as well as VPN, mobile device management and encryption.

Until now, if you wanted a phone with 4G and a hardware keyboard, you’d have to turn to another carrier like T-Mobile, which offers options like the Sidekick 4G or the MyTouch 4G Slide — not quite right if you’ve got enterprise on the mind. RIM will also be releasing five new smartphones this year, though, including the BlackBerry Torch 9810 series.

As far as Android goes, the operating system has had a stellar year so far. The OS dominates the smartphone market, and devices like the Samsung Galaxy S II are hitting record sales numbers.

The Stratosphere includes a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera, 5-megapixel rear facing camera and hot spotting for up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices.

The Samsung Stratosphere will be available October 13th for $150 with a two-year contract.

Image: Verizon