Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 officially €500 in October (update: Video!)

In backwards order, Nokia has finally launched the N900 after we’ve already seen a review and countless leaks. Nevertheless, it’s good to have the new Maemo 5 Internet Tablet out in the open and official-like. The specs include a 3.5-inch 800×480 pixel (resistive) touchscreen, sliding QWERTY, 32GB of on-board storage expandable to 48GB via microSD, GPS/A-GPS, FM transmitter, TV-out, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, 1320mAh battery, and 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash. Better yet, this monster MID brings the power of the ARM Cortex-A8, up to 1GB of application memory, and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration to make quick work of polygons and what Nokia promises will be a “PC-like experience on a handset-sized device.” It also brings a Mozilla-based Maemo browser with Adobe Flash 9.4 support. As expected, it’ll be on display at Nokia World next week before this quad-band GSM/EDGE, 900/1700/2100MHz UMTS/HSPA handset heads to select markets in October for €500 (pre tax and pre carrier subsidy). And by the looks of that 1700MHz band, this baby’s heading to T-Mobile USA.

Update: Videos added after the break.

Continue reading Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 officially €500 in October (update: Video!)

Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 officially €500 in October (update: Video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung InstinctQ for Sprint pictured: imagine a G1, but better

Going off mere clues, hypotheses and shreds of evidence, we’ve been trying to wrap our brains around the InstinctQ for a while now — and finally we’ve got a picture that firms everything up: it’s definitely an Android-powered landscape QWERTY slider for Sprint. We know the Hero’s in the pipeline, too, so between these two, Sprint could be poised to catch up to T-Mobile in a big, big way (as far as Android goes, anyhow) this fall. We think we’re digging the touch-sensitive Home, Menu, and Back buttons, and the expansive keyboard looks plenty usable. The screen isn’t looking quite as vibrant as its autobahn-driving European cousin, the Galaxy — but we’ll wait on passing final judgment until it’s in our hands, of course. Any chance that’s happening soon?

[Thanks, Justin]

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Samsung InstinctQ for Sprint pictured: imagine a G1, but better originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG’s phone division cooking up netbook integration, ‘blooming’ keyboards, and a form factor you’ve never seen

There’s no rest for the wicked, the insomniacs, or the phone manufacturers that want to keep climbing the global top-five ladder, and LG seems to have a good grip on that fact as evidenced by some juicy concepts that have turned up in a recent survey. Last time this happened, the concept in the survey went on to become the Versa — so we fully expect everything you see here to turn up in a retail product eventually (unless respondents vote overwhelmingly against ’em, we suppose).

First up is “Synergy” — not to be confused with Palm’s Synergy concept in webOS, of course — which appears to be the codename for a netbook that would integrate tightly with your phone (presumably via Bluetooth). Tethering isn’t mentioned, but you’d be able to see and respond to text messages, peep caller ID, and instantly browse photos stored on your handset right from the convenience of Synergy’s 10-inch display. Feature-wise, the netbook’s got an integrated camera, mobile broadband (again, we’re not sure if this would come via tethering or an internal card), and XP Home, which we’re guessing would likely morph into Windows 7 by the time of its release. The idea’s been floated at $149 on a two-year contract, which falls in line with what carriers seem to be charging for on-contract netbooks these days.

Follow the break for more goodies straight out of LG’s labs!

[Thanks, Panic]

Continue reading LG’s phone division cooking up netbook integration, ‘blooming’ keyboards, and a form factor you’ve never seen

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LG’s phone division cooking up netbook integration, ‘blooming’ keyboards, and a form factor you’ve never seen originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia E72 exhaustively reviewed ahead of launch

Say you’ve got a Nokia E71. Say, further, that you fully intend to upgrade to the E72 the moment it’s available (we can’t say we blame you). If you’d like to know more about the phone by the time it arrives on your doorstep than most people do in the lifetimes of their devices, we might recommend grabbing pork sandwich, a 64-ounce Coke, and your favorite blankie and curling up with mobile-review’s epic “first look.” Spec-wise, the new model is an outright slam dunk over the one it replaces, and it seems that mobile-review generally agrees — sticking points were few and far between though he seems ambivalent on the optical d-pad, and it’s also worth noting that the keyboard is now based on the E63’s design rather than the E71’s. Even if you don’t want to read through the somewhat roughly-translated text, it’s hard to argue with mobile-review’s great photography — and it’s not like you’re seeing an E72 in the flesh today, so you may as well have a look, eh?

[Via Nokia Experts]

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Nokia E72 exhaustively reviewed ahead of launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung and Sprint introduce the Reclaim — a cellphone made from corn

We love the Earth, and apparently so do Sprint and Samsung. The two companies have just introduced the Reclaim, a super-eco cellphone made from 80 percent recycled materials. The device — a stout, sliding, QWERTY message-friendly model — is constructed from “bio-plastic” materials made from corn, is free of PVC, and mostly free of BFR (brominated flame retardants)… which are apparently pretty bad. The phone also has a 2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, can accept microSD cards (we assume) up to 32GB, and has Sprint Navigation onboard. The packaging will be eco-friendly as well, as it’s constructed from 70 percent recycled materials and printed with soy-based ink. The carrier will be selling the Reclaim in “Earth Green” or “Ocean Blue” come August 16th for $50 (after a $30 instant rebate and $50 mail-in rebate) with a two-year contract. Additionally, $2 of that profit will be funneled to the Nature Conservancy’s Adopt an Acre program. Finally, a phone that goes with your Prius.

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Samsung and Sprint introduce the Reclaim — a cellphone made from corn originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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@iPhoneHater INQ Mini 3G and Chat are now posing for photographs, lol #hands-on

While you’d expect the first hands-on shots of INQ’s new sociable Mini 3G and Chat to emerge on Twitpic, it’s TechRadar doing the honors. Both of these featurephones are fairly attractive in their own right, with each being suitably slim and chock full of status updating power. In fact, we’d say the Mini 3G’s red and black QWERTY keypad is amongst the sexiest we’ve seen. Why not judge Like[TM] for yourself by giving those read links below a look?

Read – INQ Mini 3G hands-on
Read – INQ Chat hands-on

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@iPhoneHater INQ Mini 3G and Chat are now posing for photographs, lol #hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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INQ Mini 3G and INQ Chat offer slimmer, sexier angle on “social mobile” segment

INQ’s unique take on the featurephone just got a significant facelift in the form of the new INQ Mini 3G and the INQ Chat. Leaving behind the INQ1’s last-gen looks, the new INQ Chat offers a QWERTY keyboard in an E71-esque chassis, 2.4-inch screen, GPS and a 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera, while the Mini 3G takes up the T9er’s mantle with a slim candybar form factor, 2.2-inch screen and 2 megapixel camera. The big deal of course is still the (award winning) software side, which already includes features such as Skype, Facebook and Windows Live Messenger integration, along with a Synergy-style integrated address book. New additions include a Twitter app, push Gmail, and iTunes syncing, courtesy of DVD Jon’s doubleTwist software, and INQ claims that it’ll be much more proactive with software updates this time around. The phones are only dipping their toes into the media playback pool, with hardly any onboard storage, empty microSD slots, and the ever-annoying USB-to-3.5mm converter headphone jack situation, but all the parts are there. INQ’s also going to pull together an “app store” of sorts by curating freely available Java applets compatible with the handsets.

We had a look at the phones, and while the style might seem aggressive for some, the build of both phones is pretty quality for the target market, and they’re certainly tighter in the design department than the INQ1. The keyboard on the INQ Chat is quite good, especially for featurephone land, and we like that INQ kept some T9-style predictive text in the software to make QWERTY use even more of a pleasure. No, these phones still don’t replace smartphones, but they’re designed to be a low-cost alternative to the smartphone for carriers, who are a little tired of heavy phone subsidies and intense data use from the iPhone types — and sure wouldn’t mind making a few bucks off your Facebook addiction. Unfortunately, there still aren’t any plans for bringing these phones to the States. INQ is “in talks,” but for now these handsets are Europe bound, and should hit stores by Q4.

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INQ Mini 3G and INQ Chat offer slimmer, sexier angle on “social mobile” segment originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sholes Android phone headed for Verizon?

On the lookout for the Motorola / Android / Verizon trifecta, we dug up some handset renders over at motofan.ru that seem to fit the bill quite well, thank you. According to the site, “Sholes” is a 3.7-inch (480 x 854) touchscreen device that will make its debut in the U.S. in October, featuring: 512MB storage, 256MB RAM, support for microSD / microSDHC up to 16 GB (an 8GB microSD ships with the phone), a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, GPS, and the expected connectivity (USB, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi), audio, and video formats. And if the translation wasn’t hopelessly garbled, the source is also saying that this bad boy will support both CDMA and EVDO Rev A . No word on a price yet, but if this phone does make it to the realm of the real it’ll be nice to see a Moto / Android device that doesn’t look like it belongs in the hands of a tweenage girl (yeah, we said it, Morrison). See for yourself after the break.

Continue reading Motorola Sholes Android phone headed for Verizon?

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Motorola Sholes Android phone headed for Verizon? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Viliv S7 UMPC gets final pricing and specifications

We’ve held onto our hats for quite awhile waiting for this day to come, but at long last, Viliv is dishing out the final specification lists and prices for its remarkably striking S7 UMPC. First shown way back at IDF 2008 as a prototype, this QWERTY-packin’ machine has matured quite nicely over the months, with a trio of models on tap to showcase its mobile prowess. The entry-level I-LOG HX is equipped with a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, a battery good for 9.5 hours of use and Windows XP, while the mid-range I-LOG 3X steps up to a 32GB SSD. The flagship D-LOG 3X even gets an internal DMB TV tuner, while WiBro (South Korea’s WiMAX) is an option on all three. We expect the 7-inch device — which is priced at ₩729,000 ($572), ₩799,000 ($628) and ₩849,000 ($666) in order of mention — to ship in its homeland soon, though no official release date has been made public.

[Via SlashGear]

Update: jkkmobile has it that international versions could feature processors as speedy as 2GHz along with Vista and a free upgrade to Windows 7.

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Viliv S7 UMPC gets final pricing and specifications originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ogo CC-10 throws time-tested formula to the wind, goes portrait QWERTY

We haven’t heard a solitary peep out of IXI Mobile in a hot minute, even though its Ogo line — once a member of Cingular’s lineup — had found some niche popularity among teens and the deaf community. We’d even thought they’d gone into R&D hibernation, actually, but apparently not — they’re innovating. They’re innovating so much, in fact, that they’ve innovated themselves right out of the landscape clamshell form factor that made the Ogo famous. This Inventec-sourced CC-10 we just spotted in the FCC looks more Centro than Ogo, though all of the original’s features — notably strong IM and social networking support — carry on through to the new model. At any rate, we can say that IXI doesn’t intend to break back into the North American market — at least not with this exact unit, anyway — since GSM 1900 and Bluetooth are the only features it bothered testing.

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Ogo CC-10 throws time-tested formula to the wind, goes portrait QWERTY originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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