Hasta La Gadget!

Sony has a January 27th meeting in Tokyo to discuss “business [overview] and strategy.” That much is true (and confirmed by Joystiq to Sony). What we don’t know is whether MCV and VG247’s sources are worth their weight in Lucida Grande. Both sites claim to have heard this meeting will be the launch platform for the PSP2. (VG247, for its part, has previously published pictures of an apparent PSP2 dev kit.) No major trade show debut, just a Tokyo meeting of unknown spectacle… then again, 3DS’ unveil was a random press release, so stranger things have happened. We’d wager on another PlayStation Phone non-confirmation at the very least, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Sony to announce PSP2 at January 27th Tokyo meeting? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung did say it’s ready to supply all US carriers with 4G phones, not just Verizon, and we may already be looking at one of those devices before us. Billed as a T-Mobile exclusive, the Vibrant 4G looks to be a gentle refresh of the current Vibrant handset, with the notable upgrades being the inclusion of 21Mbps-capable HSPA+ connectivity — to speed your mobile broadband up into T-Mobile’s definition of 4G speeds — and a front-facing camera paired to Qik video chat software. The onboard version of Android is 2.2 and internal specs seem to generally match the earlier-released namesake. Speaking of the original Vibrant, these leaked docs also show it’s sold over one million units in its time in the US and is the nation’s best-selling Galaxy S variant. Great, now can someone please leak it to Samsung that Android 2.3 is already out?

[Thanks, Brian]

Samsung Vibrant 4G appears in leaked docs, touts 21Mbps HSPA+, front-facing camera originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Open source software enthusiasts might see another version of Android as soon as this summer.

A new Android OS version, codenamed Ice Cream, is scheduled for a release some time in June or July says Pocket-lint, citing “multiple sources familiar with the matter.” Pocket-lint’s sources say Google will announce Ice Cream at its I/O developer conference this May in San Francisco.

News of Ice Cream’s speculated launch date comes shortly after posts from the same site yesterday, which claimed that one of SonyEricsson’s Xperia Arc smartphones shown at CES appeared to be running a new version of Android. That tip was based on a picture taken of one of the phone’s sub-menus that displayed the Android version number as 2.4. The latest official Android OS release is Gingerbread, version 2.3.

“We are launching with Gingerbread for the Xperia Arc,” SonyEricsson Head of Marketing Peter Farmer told Wired.com in an e-mail. “Nothing has been announced to date on anything beyond that.” SonyEricsson employee Rikard Skogberg expounds on this in the company’s product blog, citing the number error as a “misconfiguration in some samples” and “nothing to get too excited about.”

Pocket-lint’s sources and rumors are yet to be substantiated. The timing of the supposed release date, however, seems to fall in line with Google’s staggered, two-to-three Android product launches per year.

Confused about Cupcake, Gingerbread and Ice Cream? The table below gives an idea of past Android releases.

Although no specific details have been given on any upcoming product debuts, Ice Cream predecessor Honeycomb is anticipated to appear sometime in the spring, accompanying the Motorola’s Xoom tablet launch. Honeycomb will run on that device.

Photo: sociotard/Flickr

[via Pocket-lint]

Starting to look pretty real, isn’t it? That rumored X10 Mini Pro replacement seems to be gallivanting about in China again; this time it’s not turned on, but the point is that it’s out there and certainly doesn’t seem knockoff-y to be a fake. For what it’s worth, the original X10 Mini series has been one of the few relatively bright points in Sony Ericsson’s Android lineup thus far, so we’re pretty stoked to see that they appear to be taking another shot at the diminutive form factor — let’s just hope those wild GPU results we saw last time hold up by the time it’s at retail.

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro successor out for another casual stroll? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We already confirmed that RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook was deadly fast in use, but up until now, we’ve still been left to wonder what kind of silicon was powering it. According to a RIM representative that spoke to us just now on the CES show floor, a dual-core OMAP chip from Texas Instruments is doing the honors — more specifically, it’s the blisteringly fast 1GHz OMAP 4430. And now, you know.

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook using a 1GHz OMAP 4430 processor originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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