Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)

When we stumbled upon an $800 price for the Motorola Xoom yesterday, our instinctive reaction was to leap forward to the next obvious question: when? Well, that call has now been answered by an internal Best Buy document that’s just dropped into our inbox, which explicitly pinpoints February 17th as the launch date for Moto’s highly touted, Honeycomb-equipped tablet. Stock is expected to land at the big box retailer on February 16th, with the big party going down the day after. There’s a note confirming that the Xoom will come with its promised 32GB of onboard storage, but anyone looking for confirmation or denial of the earlier pricing leak will be left disappointed. Guess we’ll all have to set our calendar alerts for about a month from now and exercise patience in the mean time.

[Thanks, dajarbot]

Update: Our tipster has also uncovered a price: $699.99. That’s a hundred green leaves south of Verizon’s supposed pricing and should soothe a few agitated souls.

Continue reading Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)

Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Flyer tablet tipped for US landing in March, to be followed by two more slates in June

Given current trends, it’s reasonable to believe that the foremost question regarding an HTC tablet is no longer if the Taiwanese company will produce one, but when. So, who could we possibly turn to for help but those ever-loquacious upstream component manufacturers that DigiTimes knows and loves so well? Their latest info points to an Android tablet dubbed the Flyer arriving in the US in March (just early enough to potentially beat the Xoom and PlayBook to market), which will roll out across the world in the second quarter of 2011 and be joined by two more slate devices (Scribe?) in June. Further details are a little murky, including the dubious suggestion that the Flyer will come with Android 2.3 on board and be upgradeable to Honeycomb (3.0), but we’re inclined to consider the overall roadmap credible. In spite of its Thunderbolt launch at CES, HTC was relatively quiet in the big January event, so we suspect it’ll bring the big(ger than a smartphone) guns to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month.

HTC Flyer tablet tipped for US landing in March, to be followed by two more slates in June originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG G-Slate to have an 8.9-inch 3D display? Rumor mill says ‘maybe’

If 3D and tablets are the two unstoppable forces of modern consumer electronics, doesn’t it make sense to meld them into one, fearsome, trendsetting device? LG’s T-Mobile-bound G-Slate might be doing exactly that, we’re hearing, as a pair of different sites are reporting it’ll come with a 3D-capable display. The guys at GPS And Co have apparently heard directly from LG’s French arm, who told them the G-Slate would have a glasses-free 3D display and 3D camera, though the validity of that information is diluted somewhat by TmoNews‘ source finding 3D glasses listed as future accessories for this rather mysterious tablet. Yes, it’s contradictory information, but then Pocket-lint has also heard directly from LG and received a promise of “an actual working 3D device,” which should be expected shortly. That could be the 4.3-inch autostereoscopic panel we scoped out at CES or it could be another hint that the G-Slate’s been camera-shy for a very particularly, three-dimensional reason.

LG G-Slate to have an 8.9-inch 3D display? Rumor mill says ‘maybe’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Unwired View  |  sourceGPS And Co, TmoNews  | Email this | Comments

HP Slate orders still delayed, still blaming ‘high volume of orders’

Oh sure, it looks like some glorious Palm / HP Web OS tablets are headed our way (even if we are hearing it won’t be until late summer / early fall), but you know what has been supposedly headed our way for over two months now? The HP Slate 500. Yep, HP’s seemingly-abandoned Windows 7 tablet is still suffering from major delays, and according to our sources and an HP customer support rep, a “material shortage” combined with a “high volume of orders” are causing these tablets to be held up. We don’t have any real details on the numbers — although, last month we had heard they received about 9,000 orders thus far — but we do know that our very own HP Slate, which we ordered back on November 9th, still hasn’t shipped and is now slated to ship out on January 22nd. And we’re definitely not the only ones still patiently waiting — a look through the TabletPC Review forums reveals that a number of irate customers are still longing for their 8.9-inch, Atom-powered tablets — although, many of them were offered a $100 discount in exchange for not having their tablets in time for the holidays. We’ve reached out to HP for further comment on this, but in the meantime, we’ll be refreshing our account page and hoping our Slate finally ships out before the end of the month or, you know, at least before HP starts announcing new ones in early February.

HP Slate orders still delayed, still blaming ‘high volume of orders’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP’s first webOS tablet may start shipping in March, fulfill longstanding promise

Way back in August of last year, when temperatures were above zero and Honeycomb was still a great unknown, HP promised us the first webOS tablet will come “in early 2011.” Just yesterday, however, our noteworthy exposure of the vanguard members of the webOS tablet family led us to believe that at least one of them, the Opal, would take until September to arrive. That may still be the case, but DigiTimes is bringing us back around to HP’s original pledge, with word that Inventec has received instructions from HP to start producing and shipping a webOS slate (most probably the Topaz) in March. As usual, this comes from the (in)famous insider sources that tend to miss as often as they hit, but it does make sense for HP to follow up its February event with a relatively rapid product rollout.

HP’s first webOS tablet may start shipping in March, fulfill longstanding promise originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo setting up a specialist unit for tablets and smartphones

How far we’ve come. It was only a couple of years ago that Lenovo was closing a deal to sell its mobile phone business, but a quick re-acquisition in late 2009 and some recent heavy flirtation with the tablet form factor have led to the creation of a whole new unit in the company’s hierarchy, one dedicated to the development of smartphones, tablets, TVs, and other internet-connected devices. Headed up by Liu Jun and working out of Beijing, this squad of designers and engineers will focus on harnessing the “tremendous growth potential of the mobile internet.” Cloud computing will be a major feature of Lenovo’s plans moving forward, which places its goals for the future right in line with just about everyone else’s. Still, it’s good to see one of the big desktop computing players diversifying its portfolio with gusto.

Lenovo setting up a specialist unit for tablets and smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer building Sandy Bridge tablets for Android, will use them to ‘phase out’ netbooks

You’d be forgiven for expecting that the dual-core Tegra 2 that swept all before it at CES would be the king of tablet processors for a good while, but Acer is already plotting ways to overthrow it. Admittedly, Acer is kind of cheating by jumping into x86 land and snatching some unspecified Intel Sandy Bridge silicon, but are you really going to complain about getting multi-core grunt under the hood of your well-lubricated Android machine? An official from the company has promised two to three new tablets, sized at either 7 or 10 inches diagonally, for the first half of this year — a tasty morsel of information, which he garnishes with the forecast that netbooks will eventually be phased out in favor of such touchy-feely slate devices. If you can fit a full second-gen Core CPU inside a tablet, why the heck not?

Updated: Acer’s US team has clarified for us that the Android tablets it announced in November are still set to hit in April. Obviously, these Sandy Bridge versions would be farther off, but we’ve also heard from another source that Acer would likely wait for Intel’s ULV-based Sandy Bridge processors, which aren’t due until the spring / summer timeframe. We’ll let you know if we hear more…

Acer building Sandy Bridge tablets for Android, will use them to ‘phase out’ netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mysterious 7-inch Viewsonic Android tablet breaks cover, reveals little

Let’s see, if there’s a ViewPad 10 and a ViewPad 4, logic would dictate that a ViewPad 7 couldn’t be far out, right? Unfortunately for those convinced, Viewsonic actually has a 7-inch ViewPad on the market already, and the device you’re peering at above most certainly isn’t it. This gem was spotted by CarryPad at Zinio’s CES booth, complete with Android 2.2, the outfit’s own content software and… well, who knows what else. Chippy noted that booth attendees weren’t exactly hip with him toying around with the device, though he did remark that performance seemed snappier than usual when compared to the other 7-inchers out there. So, will Viewsonic come clean with its LTE-enabled, 7-inch miracle-of-a-tablet? Highly doubtful, but who said dreaming was a crime?

Mysterious 7-inch Viewsonic Android tablet breaks cover, reveals little originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNetbook News, CarryPad  | Email this | Comments

ThinkPad X220t images surface, look exactly as you’d imagine

Are you a rabid ThinkPad fan? Does the sight of black plastic and a red nub in the center of the keyboard drive you into a frenzied gadget lust? You’ve seen the X201 (and even its sad, Atom-powered KIRF) so how about a peek at its presumed followup? According to 51nb.com, the self-described “gate to the professional notebook users,” the ThinkPad X220t rocks a DisplayPort interface, VGA port, two USB 2.0 ports (although they could be upgraded to USB 3.0 as this thing gets ready for prime time), an SD card reader, capacitive touchscreen and stylus. And like its predecessor, it will flip ’round into slate mode. You know, for when you’re in that sort of a mood. But pictures speak louder than words — even pictures that have had the background cut out and rendered drop shadows thrown in for good measure. See for yourself after the break.

Continue reading ThinkPad X220t images surface, look exactly as you’d imagine

ThinkPad X220t images surface, look exactly as you’d imagine originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Streak 7 torn down on video, we still can’t find the reason it’s running Froyo

The Dell Streak 7 might, in many people’s eyes, be seen as what the original Streak should have been — a 4G-equipped tablet with a spicy dual-core filling and the dimensions of a legitimate handheld computer. Unfortunately, it’s launching quite a bit later than its precursor and few will be happy to hear it’s running Android version 2.2 (Froyo) when we’ve just been graced by the brilliant light of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) on other machines launching within the same time frame. That said, it’s still a gadget, it’s got circuit boards and connectors and tiny, minuscule things, and it’s been tenderly disassembled for you on video right after the break. Why not try to figure out what makes the screen look so bland?

Continue reading Dell Streak 7 torn down on video, we still can’t find the reason it’s running Froyo

Dell Streak 7 torn down on video, we still can’t find the reason it’s running Froyo originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 07:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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