Hasta La Gadget!

While Symbian might be good as dead to most Engadget readers, Nokia must continue supporting the millions of S^ wearing faithful until it can fully transition to a Windows Phone smartphone shop in 2012. So we were interested to hear Marc Driessen, Nokia Benelux product manager, spill some details about a few previously unannounced Symbian updates for 2011. As you’ll recall, S^4 as a product had been canned months ago, but the scheduled UI updates were still part of the Symbian roadmap. According to Driessen, Nokia is targeting a major UI overhaul in the fall, an update rumored to include a dedicated pull-down status bar up top; new iconography; new flexible widgets; a simplified navigation bar below; and better menus throughout that don’t require a scuba suit to navigate. While Nokia HQ won’t confirm the dates or details to us (we asked), the fall timeline does match with what we’ve heard elsewhere. Dutch site All About Phones is also reporting that a smaller update for N8 and E7 users might come as early as this summer. Of course, those owners are still waiting for the first real S^3 update that was promised for early 2011, so hopefully Nokia can squeeze in the split screen text input, portrait QWERTY, and improved browser before March is done.

Symbian UI overhaul scheduled for the fall? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Sprint starting up its Windows Phone 7 adventure on March 20th with the HTC Arrive, Verizon is now said to be matching its CDMA competitor with its own offering, the HTC 7 Trophy. We already knew this particular handset would be coming to this particular network in “early 2011,” but now WinRumors has narrowed that down to a launch at some point in late March. Verizon’s announcement is expected as early as February 28th, this coming Monday, and we’re hearing the NoDo update — the one with copy and paste — should be preloaded on the device from the start. Should this solid-sounding rumor bear out as foretold, Microsoft should finally be on all US carriers by the start of April.

[Thanks, Mike]

Windows Phone 7 coming to Verizon in March, starting with HTC 7 Trophy? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wrigley, Hancock, Millennium, Gallo, Sterling, Rosemount, Silver Oak, Peju and Opus One. What are we rattling off? Oh, just the list of codenames from one of the largest leaks we’ve ever seen out of Dell. WPCentral and Android Central got their hands on alleged smartphone and tablet roadmaps for the entire year, detailing the company’s plans for devices running operating systems that have yet to be formally announced, including Android Ice Cream (yes, Ice Cream!) and Windows 8 as well as the tablet-friendly Honeycomb. Here’s the full rundown.

Smartphones:

• Things look pretty boring (and by boring, we mean beautifully curvy) until approximately mid-April of this year, when the Venue Pro gets some “additional features and enhancements” which we’re pretty sure we can name.

• Then, Q3 brings the Wrigley, what looks like a vertical QWERTY slider identifying itself as “Windows Phone 7 Next Gen,” and sporting a 1GHz CPU, 4-inch 800 x 480 screen, and a 8 megapixel camera with 720p video recording. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as we know.

• By September, things should get very interesting as Android Ice Cream will apparently be out, and Dell’s Hancock will scoop it onto a 4-inch qHD screen with dual cameras, dual-core processing and 1080p recording.

• Starting Q4, would-be Hancock buyers will have a dual-core multimedia slate alternative, as the Millennium drops the keyboard for a larger 4.3-inch screen and DLNA support (though the front-facing camera is limited to VGA resolution.)

Tablets:

• Dell’s Streak 10 won’t keep us waiting for long: come April, the Gallo will reportedly be chomping away at some tasty Honeycomb. But that’s not all — Dell lists a handwriting update for the Gallo in October or thereabouts. There’s also a Streak 7 update scheduled for July — we imagine that’s the point when Dell believes it can shoehorn Android 3.0 onto its older brother.

• Meanwhile, Dell’s 10-inch Windows 7 slate, internally known as Rosemount, is slated for June, with a 1366 x 768 resolution that should allow for native playback of 720p video.

• We can’t tell you what the Sterling is, but it’s likely a mid-sized one, as it’s slated to take over the Streak 7’s duties in or about October with Android Honeycomb on board.

• Finally, come CES 2012 in January, we now expect Dell to drop three new tablets at once: the Opus One and Silver Oak running Android Honeycomb, and the Peju with Windows 8. (The Streak 10 / Gallo will apparently soldier on.) Numbers on the left of the charge suggest that the Opus will be small, the Silver Oak mid-sized, and the Peju large.

As noted at the head of the slide, all details here are subject to change, but we’re sure as heck a lot more confident that Dell plans to do something with all those tacky mockups. One more chart after the break!

Continue reading Dell’s 2011 smartphone and tablet lineup leaked: Android Ice Cream, WP7 sliders, and a slate running Windows 8

Dell’s 2011 smartphone and tablet lineup leaked: Android Ice Cream, WP7 sliders, and a slate running Windows 8 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alright, we’ve just laid eyes on some internal Samsung documents and can bring you the official names and specs of the successors to the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab. Firstly, the Galaxy S II will tout a 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 Super AMOLED Plus display, a 1GHz dual-core Orion / Exynos processor, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, and 24Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. All those stats were leaked earlier this morning, along with the image above, and we’ve once again seen the 8.49mm thickness for this device, although we now believe it is the measurement at its thinnest point — it’s likely that the S II will fatten up to 9.9mm, presumably to accommodate the camera module, one of the last remaining parts of smartphone construction that require extra girth (NFC being another).

As to the Galaxy Tab II, it is indeed the 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet we’ve been hearing so much about, with the added bonus of it being a Google Experience Device. That should mean no Samsung-derived skin customizations atop the stock Android 3.0 UI — exactly what we expect to see from the Motorola Xoom. Also matching the Xoom are the resolution, at 1280 x 800, and CPU speed, at 1GHz, though we couldn’t determine whether the Tab II will be a dual- or single-core tablet. Our money’s on seeing the Exynos 4210 appear in both new Galaxy devices, but we’ll have to wait until Samsung’s presser tomorrow to find out for sure. One more note of import on specs: we saw a 16GB / 32GB / 64GB storage listing, but couldn’t be sure what product it referred to — wouldn’t it be lovely if the Galaxy S II was the first smartphone to step past the 60GB barrier?

Finally, looking toward the future, Samsung is apparently working on a 4-inch WVGA display with 3D capabilities — presumably autostereoscopic like LG’s Optimus 3D — and an intriguing “Motion UI” control scheme. The latter will allow you to pan inside Google Maps and StreetView just by the movement of your phone, as well as zoom in and out of pages by tilting the handset up and down (a gyroscope will be required for both functions). Samsung also has big plans for LTE, with a focus on pumping out whatever you receive over the 4G connection to a nearby HDTV using dual display technology. The two applications we caught sight of were personal broadcasting, where your Sammy handset would act as an extremely sophisticated internet TV receiver, and cloud-based gaming. Here’s hoping we learn more about these future ventures tomorrow.

Samsung Galaxy S II and 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab II confirmed for MWC, 4-inch 3D display, LTE-based cloud gaming coming later originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Editorial: Engadget on Nokia’s Friday announcement

Editorial: Engadget on Nokia’s Friday announcement originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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