Gadget Lab Podcast: BlackBerry Torch, Universal Chargers, and More

In this week’s podcast, your hosts Dylan F. Tweney and Priya Ganapati discuss the top gadget release of the week: Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Torch, a touchscreen phone with a slide-out “crackberry” keyboard, which will be available on AT&T.

We also discuss the impending European unified cellphone charger standard: Starting next year, every phone sold in Europe will be compatible with a single type of micro-USB plug. That means you’ll soon have no problem borrowing a friend’s charger to juice up your phone, regardless of model. But how long until this standard makes it to the U.S.?

We also show off two new products: the Doxie, a $130, portable USB scanner that specializes in turning your printed documents and photos into online files on Flickr, Evernote, Google Docs and the like; and LaCie’s XtremKey, a super-tough USB memory stick with a solid steel housing that’s resistant to shock, heat, cold, and water.

This week’s podcast is 10 minutes long.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our smiling faces, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

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The Engadget Show – 011: Peter Molyneux, Fable III, Milo, BlackBerry Torch, Windows Phone 7

Brace yourselves, humans, because we have an all new, amazing Engadget Show fresh out of the box! For your viewing pleasure, we sit down with insightful game designer Peter Molyneux to get the inside scoop on some of his ongoing projects, from Milo to Fable III. Then, Josh, Paul, and Nilay bust out RIM’s latest, the BlackBerry Torch and put it through its paces live on stage. They dive into Windows Phone 7 and do battle with K-mart’s Augen Android tablet, and a bunch of audience members walk away with giveaways. Oh yeah, we also have brain-busting music from Zen Albatross and mind-numbing visuals from invaderbacca that you will absolutely want to check out. What are you waiting for? Watch it now!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Special guests: Peter Molyneux
Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm
Executive Producer: Joshua Fruhlinger
Edited by: Peirre Verna
Music by: Zen Albatross
Visuals by: Invaderbacca
Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec

Taped live at The Times Center

Download the Show: The Engadget Show – 011 (HD) / The Engadget Show – 011 (iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted)

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The Engadget Show – 011: Peter Molyneux, Fable III, Milo, BlackBerry Torch, Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Torch Gets Dissected

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Torch won’t be in hands of consumers till next week but a website has taken the device apart for a closer look.

CrackBerry.com disassembled the Torch for a look at the device’s slider mechanism that helps pull out the keyboard, the bumper antenna that attaches to the board and the magnesium tray that the Torch’s display is encased in.

RIM launched the Torch on Tuesday as a $200 touchscreen phone (with contract) that would be available exclusively on AT&T’s network. Unlike the Storm and Storm 2, earlier touchscreen models from RIM, the Torch has both a touch sensitive display and a keyboard packed together in a slider mechanism–similar to the Palm Pre.

The video below shows the Torch’s keyboard slider, which is apparently rated for 15,000 cycles.

Head over to CrackBerry.com to see the rest of the photos.

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Photos: CrackBerry.com


BlackBerry Torch review

When we began our review of the BlackBerry Torch (aka the Bold 9800), our hearts were all aflutter. The leaked shots we’d been seeing of some kind of Palm Pre-esque RIM slider were different and frankly weird enough to cause a kind of low hum gadget lust. Furthermore, although no one on the Engadget team was blown away by what the company had shown us in recent BlackBerry OS 6 demo videos, the promise of a substantially revamped UI and new, Webkit-powered browser certainly got us interested. Even if Research in Motion had been slipping on its once-unassailable smartphone game, there was a sentiment amongst the team that the opportunity for a return to innovative, industry-driving design was wide open for the Canadian company. So when we got our very own Torch to play with, we were understandably excited. A new OS, a new form-factor (completely new for RIM), and from what we could tell, a new outlook from the company about where it wanted to target this product: namely, the average consumer. A great story in the making, no? But it’s a fiercely competitive market out there, with devices like the EVO 4G, iPhone 4, and Galaxy S line all vying for the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of the buyer. Can the BlackBerry Torch pick up where hugely successful models like the Curve and Bold have left off? Or is the new phone too little and too late in an industry where technology advances not by tiny step but leaps and bounds? Get the answer to that question — and many, many more — in the full Engadget review below!

Continue reading BlackBerry Torch review

BlackBerry Torch review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Bold 9780 leaks out with OS 6, QWERTY instead of touchscreen

Take this one with a grain of salt, but it’s looking like our old friend the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is getting a wee bit of an update. Yesterday evening, CrackBerry discovered a RIM document that describes a QWERTY-packing, OS 6-rocking “BlackBerry 9780” destined for a GSM carrier near you… and less than 24 hours later, handset sleuth Salomondrin claims to have the first picture of the device. While we quite honestly can’t tell the difference, the man who outed the Curve 2 says this device’s chrome bezel is a tad darker than the original, and that it’ll have 512MB of flash memory when it hits the scene. Of course, this could just be an Bold 9700 with a hacked ROM or a theme of some sort, but we certainly hope not; pepper it up with CDMA, and you’ve got a shoe-in for the Curve 3.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

BlackBerry Bold 9780 leaks out with OS 6, QWERTY instead of touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSalomondrin, CrackBerry  | Email this | Comments

RIM shows off BlackBerry 6 multimedia experience, in pictures

While there’s still no (official) word on when we’ll get any BlackBerry OS 6 hardware, much less that 9800 Bold, RIM has seen fit to provide us another glimpse at the software front. This time round we’re looking at multimedia features, including the photo gallery, a brand-new podcasts app and YouTube, alongside extra camera controls (including a face detection mode) and roundabout confirmation that at least some new BlackBerries will support pinch-to-zoom. Oddly enough, there’s no video showing off the new multimedia functionality, just a set of stills, but we suppose RIM realizes it’s all been done before and Crackberry addicts will take whatever they can get right now.

RIM shows off BlackBerry 6 multimedia experience, in pictures originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Boy Genius Report  |  sourceInside BlackBerry  | Email this | Comments

Apple, RIM, Google all bid on Palm?

We’re having a hell of a time believing this, but BusinessInsider’s Dan Frommer is citing “a source familiar with the negotiations” as saying that RIM, Google, and Apple — yes, Apple — were all in the mix for Palm at one point or another as the bidding war went on earlier this year. We all know how that story ended up playing out, but prior to HP’s winning bid, RIM allegedly made a generous offer and could’ve ultimately come away with the prize had it not failed to re-up the bid (and may have even reduced it, looking at Palm’s SEC filings) after HP made its move. For its part, Google apparently made some not-too-serious moves, primarily in a perceived head game with Apple.

Speaking of Apple, the company was said to be in it primarily for Palm’s sizable patent portfolio — but is claimed to have also been interested in keeping the platform alive, possibly in an effort to compete in the physical QWERTY market where the iPhone has not. Of course, if you look way back, it’s important to remember that Mac OS X itself is based on outside work (if you consider NeXT “outside”), so we guess that keeping webOS alive in some capacity after an Apple acquisition wouldn’t be totally unprecedented — but it’d still be really, really weird at best.

Apple, RIM, Google all bid on Palm? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Gold with Windows Phone 7 in November, and more from a rumored UK roadmap leak

O, to see what Omio sees. The outlet has obtained what it claims to be “a huge UK mobile phone release schedule for the rest of the year… [from] all the manufacturers” (emphasis its own). So, from where would such an all-encompassing roadmap hail? We don’t know, nor can we corroborate any of this, but the details are numerous so let’s go through it — albeit with cautious optimism and a few grains of salt. The biggest phone we can see of this baker’s dozen of a lineup is the HTC Gold (sound familiar?), due in November and loaded with Microsoft’s mobile OS newcomer Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, that’s all the information provided, but it’s certainly enough to entice us. Also in November, we’ve got Samsung i8700 and Nokia E7 — the latter being possibly a N8-esque QWERTY slider with AMOLED display and Symbian^3, and the former being a mystery (although Omio takes a gander that its aquatic Greek mythology might suggest a Bada-powered existence).

Going up the list Memento style, October purportedly brings across the pond-ers HTC Vision, the virtually unknown HTC Ace, Nokia N8, and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X8 and Yendo. September’s a bit of a yawner — SE Hazel and a Nokia X2 candybar — as is August with the X6 8GB and BlackBerry Curve 9300. And July? Nokia E5-00, Sony Ericsson W20, and Samsung i5500. As is usually the case, the more you can wait, the better your options. Now, let’s see if this supposed roadmap stays on course.

HTC Gold with Windows Phone 7 in November, and more from a rumored UK roadmap leak originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPoweruser, SlashGear  |  sourceOmio  | Email this | Comments

BlackBerry Curve 9300 prototype gets handled on video

BlackBerry lovers, are you sitting at home on a Friday night itching for the latest device scoop? Or out but glued to your screen checking news sites in between BBM relays? Looks like TechnoBuffalo (with a little help from Negri Electronics) has you covered: hands-on time with the Curve 9300. This prototype 8500 replacement has T-Mobile UK bands and is actually working (although with OS 5 at the moment). Compared with its predecessor, the keyboard is apparently improved, the side buttons more flush with the device, and there are a few cosmetic differences as you can notice in the picture above. Video after the break… now get on with your evening, k?

Continue reading BlackBerry Curve 9300 prototype gets handled on video

BlackBerry Curve 9300 prototype gets handled on video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM sells 100 millionth BlackBerry, hints at two more devices in the near future

Say what you will about BlackBerrys — although with the Bold 9800 slider and OS 6, things might be looking up — Research in Motion is still doing strong in the pocketbooks. The company just released its first fiscal quarter 2011 results with revenue growth of 24 percent year-over-year, and here’s the rounded-number kicker: its 11.2 million shipments of smartphones this quarter has raised total shipments to over 100 million BlackBerrys. Quite a feat, but enough chit chat about the past — what does the future hold? In a conference call pertaining to the fiscal results, RIM alluded to two new devices shipping soon, with one for the summer and one closer to fall. We’d bet a pretty penny one of them is the aforementioned slider, but as for the second? Guess we’ll just wait and see.

RIM sells 100 millionth BlackBerry, hints at two more devices in the near future originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  sourceRIM  | Email this | Comments