Hasta La Gadget!

The only official timeframe we have for an Android 3.0 Honeycomb release is sometime “next year.” A little too vague for our liking and for a seemingly infinite list of manufacturers chomping at the bit to release their fully sanctioned Android tablets onto the world. Now DigiTimes narrows things down a bit with an off-the-cuff comment about MSI preparing to sell its Tegra 2-based tablets in April or May “after Google releases Android 3.0 in March.” Of course, a March release seems almost definite what with Acer hoping to ship its tablets with Honeycomb in April as well. Hopefully we’ll get this confirmed at CES in early January.

Google’s Honeycomb Android tablet release slated for March? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Dec 2010 06:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s taken AMD a long time to refresh the top end of its graphics hardware, but today’s culmination to that wait has to be described as somewhat bittersweet. Sweet, because we’re finally getting a successor to the venerable HD 5870, one that offers improved power management and tessellation performance at a lower $369 price point, but also bitter because in terms of sheer firepower, the Radeon series doesn’t seem to have made quite the leap many of us had hoped for. The new top of AMD’s single-GPU pile, the HD 6970, offers 1,536 stream processors, an 880MHz core clock speed, and 2GB of GDDR5 RAM running at 5.5GHz for a total of 176GBps of memory bandwidth. Its partner in crime, the HD 6950, is expected to list at $299, for which saving you’ll have to sacrifice some clock speed (down to 800MHz) and processing units (1,408 in total). There’s a neat little addition to both new boards: a Dual-BIOS switch that will act like Google’s hardware jailbreak toggle on the Cr-48, allowing tweakers to unlock the extra (unprotected by warranty!) performance headroom in their cards.

Early reviews all seem to agree that both the Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 have struck a very fine price-to-performance ratio. The 6970 manages to spar with the much pricier GTX 580, but given that it’s priced similarly to NVIDIA’s GTX 570, it scores plaudits for being a more than viable alternative. The HD 6950 is seen as the real value item here, however, particularly since it occupies a relatively unique spot in the price range, and most reviewers tipped it as their new bang-for-the-buck leader.

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Continue reading AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 launch assault on enthusiast gaming market

AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 launch assault on enthusiast gaming market originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Call it coincidence if you want, but a December 7th press conference to launch the NFC Forum’s new Certification Program likely has something to do with NFC read / write support built into Google’s new Android 2.3 “Gingerbread.” An OS that could be officially unveiled as early as today according to a cheeky blog post by Notion Ink that includes this bullet:

“6th December is another big day for Android and you will find out how fast Notion Ink can work. (Eden is extremely compatible with 2.3).”

Recall how gung-ho Eric Schmidt was on the topic of Near Field Communication while demonstrating it using a still unannounced Nexus S with an embedded NFC chip at the Web 2.0 Summit. That was way back on November 16th when Schmidt promised a Gingerbread release “in like the next few weeks.” According to the NFC Forum, a device must be certified in order to display the official “N-Mark” (pictured) — a symbol for NFC that tells you where to touch in order to initiate NFC services on your device. So, Google… anything you’d like to announce before Tuesday?

Continue reading NFC certification program announced just in time for Android 2.3 Gingerbread launch

NFC certification program announced just in time for Android 2.3 Gingerbread launch originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 03:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If your tablet wishlist includes things like Tegra 2, Android 2.2, and 1080p video playback, you might want to drop by your nearest Office Depot some time soonish. ViewSonic’s G Tablet has just been made available for purchase at the store’s many outlets across the US and is also supposed to be up for grabs at its online portal. We say “supposed” because we can’t find it anywhere on officedepot.com, but that’s probably just a temporary issue. The main point is that $399 will buy you a seat on the Froyo tablet bandwagon, a very glossy 10-inch seat with 1024 x 600 resolution. Skip past the break for the full PR.

Continue reading Office Depot welcomes 10-inch ViewSonic G Tablet into the fold, slaps $399 sticker on it

Office Depot welcomes 10-inch ViewSonic G Tablet into the fold, slaps $399 sticker on it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp’s evolutionary tablets are coming, people. It’s just that they’re coming to Japan and they’re not going to be terribly affordable when they do arrive. The Kin maker has just revealed a December 10 launch date for its Mobile and Home Galapagos models — a 5.5-inch slate with 1024 x 600 resolution and a 10.8-incher with 1366 x 800 resolution, respectively — pricing them at ¥39,800 ($474) and ¥54,800 ($653) for the Japanese market. As usual, direct currency translations are inadvisable, but if you must have a price comparison of some sort, the larger Galapagos model (equipped with an 8GB microSDHC storage card) costs ¥4,000 less than Apple’s 32GB WiFi-only iPad. Of course, the big differentiator in Sharp’s mind will be the e-bookstore and content ecosystem it’s working so hard to create for these Galapagos terminals — the value of which has yet to be determined.

Sharp’s Galapagos media tablets landing December 10, costing quite a few Yen originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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