Hasta La Gadget!

The thinnest 15-inch laptop “on the planet” is coming tomorrow, costing a measly $999, according to the Wall Street Journal. In a profile of Dell’s recent history and forthcoming plans in the consumer electronics market, the financial paper twice makes reference to an ultrathin, $999 laptop that is set to launch on Tuesday of this week. Pairing that intel with the abundance of leaks surrounding the slinky 15.6-inch XPS 15z — including a Michael Dell tweet promising it’s “coming soon” — leads us to the conclusion that we’ve finally gotten ahold of the price and date for Dell’s next big thing. Interestingly enough, the WSJ article goes on to say that Dell had canned a similar set of slim laptops earlier in the year, which might give us greater hope for the quality of the 15z — it survived where others didn’t.

Other disclosures in the piece include a quote from Michael Dell, saying that he “didn’t completely see” the tablet boom coming, which might explain why sales of his company’s Streak tablets have been low enough to be described as “immaterial.” There’s also a discussion of the abortive Zing music service and related MP3 players that never were, but you’ll have to hit the source link to learn more about them.

Update: As further evidence of the 15z’s imminent release, the tease has turned into a show with a video that fully reveals its slimline chassis and declares that the new Dell packs the Streak’s Stage UI as well. [Thanks, Ishai and Ming Han]

Update 2: And now we have the answer to our headline question: yes.

Continue reading Dell XPS 15z coming tomorrow for $999? (updated)

Dell XPS 15z coming tomorrow for $999? (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 May 2011 06:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wall Street Journal, Dell  | Email this | Comments

Direct sales figures for Windows Phone 7 handsets have been remarkably difficult to come by since Microsoft’s OS reboot at the end of last year, but here come the stat gurus at Gartner to provide us with their best estimate. 3.6 million of the world’s smartphone sales in the past quarter were counted under the Microsoft mobile OS umbrella, of which 1.6 million featured the very latest WP7 software. That means Redmond partners sold more Windows Mobile devices in the first three months of 2011 than ones bearing the sparkling new operating system. Guess now we know what LG meant when it said the Windows Phone launch didn’t meet expectations. Gartner sees these numbers as evidencing a failure “to grow in consumer preference” by WP7’s launch devices, though it predicts better things ahead, with Nokia’s participation helping to accelerate the platform’s momentum. For more (much more!) stats relating to the global cellphone market in Q1 2011, click on the source link for Gartner’s full disclosure.

Gartner: 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices sold in Q1, consumer interest remains tepid originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 06:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPoweruser  |  Gartner  | Email this | Comments

It won’t have escaped your attention that just about every Honeycomb tablet shipping in the first half of this year features, or will feature, NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 hardware. Unfortunately for NVIDIA, reception for the Android 3.0 slates has been a little underwhelming, and the company’s Chief Eloquence Officer, Jen-Hsun Huang, has had a few words to say about it. He sees the relative paucity of tablet-optimized Android apps as a weakness, while also expressing the belief that cheaper WiFi-only models should’ve been the standard shipping config rather than fully fledged 3G / 4G variants as Motorola has been pushing with the Xoom. All in all, his is a very sane and accurate analysis, but Mr. Huang loves to look to the future as much as he enjoys talking about the present, and in his opinion all these major downsides have already been “largely addressed” by “a new wave” of Android tablets. He doesn’t specify the devices that constitute said wave, but his emphasis on thinness and lightness leads us to believe he’s talking up Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 models. Hit the source links to read more from the bronzed stallion in charge of NVIDIA.

NVIDIA CEO disappointed by Android tablet sales, blames pricing and poor app selection originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 May 2011 20:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  CNET, ZDNet  | Email this | Comments

There wasn’t much good news for Logitech investors when the company revealed its results for the financial fourth quarter, as it fell far below targets for sales and revenue. Most of the blame went towards weak performance in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but it also suffered from far lower than expected sales of the Google TV-powered Revue and its accessories, accounting for only $5 million in sales, down from $22 million the quarter before and short of its estimate of $18 million. Beyond fixing its issues overseas, CEO Gerald Quindlen still sees a future where internet connected TVs follow a similar path to smartphones and cited the next generation of Google TV as a major opportunity. Starting in May, the company will cut the price of the Revue to $249 (which is still at least $50 too high) and plans to “re-accelerate” its marketing at “the appropriate time” — probably sometime after Google I/O and the addition of the Android Market. As for that current hardware, both the Revue and the Sony Google TV products received unspecified “security updates” today, although Qriocity and Music Unlimited access remained offline on our Sony Internet TV unit. So let’s do the postmortem and guess what contributed to the low sales more: high prices, a half baked product or ads featuring a hairy-legged TV and Kevin Bacon?

Logitech’s ‘disappointing’ Q4 results not helped by poor Revue sales; will cut price to $249 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink NewTeeVee  |  Revue update, Earnings (PDF), Remarks (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

It’s a “good news, bad news” kind of a day in Super Mario land, as Nintendo’s announcement of a Wii successor has been followed up with the delivery of the company’s financial results for fiscal year 2010, which don’t make for happy reading. Nintendo’s net sales of $12.4 billion for the period ending on March 31st 2011 was 29 percent less than it tallied during the previous year, while its $825 million of net profit was also a staggering 66 percent lower than it earned last year. The 3DS has sold well so far, reaching 3.61 million transactions worldwide, but the Wii is down to 15 million global sales, which marks a 25 percent contraction from its FY2009 total of 20 million. So the impetus for a hardware refresh of the Wii is clearly there, now it’s just a matter of waiting for E3 to find out exactly how Nintendo plans to go about it.

Nintendo sells 3.61 million 3DS handhelds, but sees 2010 net profit decline by 66 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nintendo [PDF]  | Email this | Comments