Hasta La Gadget!

With the G1 on its last legs, the CLIQ stands as T-Mobile USA’s only QWERTY Android set — and for a carrier that seems as committed to Android as T-Mobile does, that doesn’t seem right, now, does it? Indeed, that rumored myTouch Slide looks like it’s going to get real here pretty shortly now that we’re seeing shots of the thing in the wild, and… well, it looks nothing like the original myTouch 3G (and even less like the Fender edition). Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder — and we’d want to wait until we see this in the flesh — but the myTouch Slide appears to lack the old model’s attractive contours, sticking with a spartan design strangely paired to a chrome-ringed earpiece. Besides the clear addition of an optical pad here (something we’d previously heard HTC would be pushing hard in 2010), it’s apparently got an HVGA display, externally accessible microSD slot, camera with flash, and unfortunately, an old-school ARM11 processor. We’re holding out hope that T-Mobile has plenty of higher-end gear waiting in the wings, but for now, this looks like the G1’s true spiritual successor.

T-Mobile myTouch Slide in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TmoNews  |  Droid Developer  | Email this | Comments

We don’t know what everybody else in the phone business has been doing lately, but Inbrics has just unveiled what looks to be the near-ultimate Android phone. The Inbrics M1 is a slider handset with a (great) 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display, 3 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera, 16GB of built-in storage, microSD slot and all the other usual trimmings, but what’s particularly stunning is that the phone is not only half an inch thick, but it has a full QWERTY keyboard that’s surprisingly clicky and typable. The phone is running Android 1.5 right now, but it should be up to Android 2.0 by the time it hits the market in March. The biggest concern is the 800MHz Samsung processor, the same chip that’s in the Samsung Moment, but the interface (as demonstrated in the video after the break) is smooth as butter, and they demo’d it playing back 720p video just fine.

Inbrics actually has a lot of custom UI and software running on top of Android, but the most interesting part is what they’re doing with video calling and beaming media from handset to videophone to TV to laptop over DLNA or through an access point device that plugs into the TV over HDMI. Inbrics also has a Cover Flow-style media browser that isn’t super deep in functionality, but still puts the stock Android stuff to shame, and some rather sexy custom widgets.

The plan is apparently to get a carrier to bite and rebrand this phone in the US, so price and availability are still pretty hard to pin down, but if this phone can hit the market soon it sure could give the rest of the QWERTY Android sliders out there some body image issues.

Continue reading Inbrics M1 is the thinnest Android slider we’ve seen, probably everything we ever wanted

Inbrics M1 is the thinnest Android slider we’ve seen, probably everything we ever wanted originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Anyone looking for the highest-end Windows Mobile experience you can buy on AT&T, go ahead and form a line to the left, please, because your knight in shining armor has arrived. The LG eXpo — complete with a Snapdragon core, 5 megapixel camera, 3.2-inch WVGA display, fingerprint scanner, QWERTY slide, and optional microprojector — is now available, albeit at a $199.99 after-rebate, on-contract price that puts it pretty far into the realm of the high-power smartphone elite. The downside is that the aforementioned projector isn’t yet available for purchase, which makes the whole package a little less compelling — then again, that means you’re walking out of the store with $179 that you wouldn’t have otherwise had, so just look at your eXpo purchase as a fantastic money-making opportunity.

LG eXpo goes on sale at AT&T, sans projector originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gearlog  |  AT&T  | Email this | Comments

Sony Ericsson giveth, and Sony Ericsson taketh away. Just as the Xperia Pureness — that wildly mainstream device with absolutely universal appeal (and concierge service) — makes its way to commercial availability, we’re hearing that the Xperia X2 will not be finding store shelves for at least another month. Made official way back in September, the Windows Mobile 6.5 QWERTY slider had already used up most of its Q4 release window, and this latest setback will do its chances of success little good. In the time since its announcement, SE itself has shown off the X10, HTC has leaked an entire roadmap all over itself, the Google phone has emerged from secrecy and, of course, the Droid has come out to a deafening roar of approval. Sony Ericsson explains that it is still optimizing the software and battery life, but all that could be irrelevant to a January 2010 world looking forward to Maemo this and Android that.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 delayed until January 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Brighthand  | Email this | Comments

Hey — what’s that? Oh right, it’s the LG eXpo, the slider with a pico projector jammed inside. Among other things, the full QWERTY slider’s packing a 1GHz CPU, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, a 5 megapixel camera, a microSD slot, and of course that removable Texas Instruments projector. The just-announced handset bears quite a strong resemblance to the Monaco we heard about way back in May — though from the looks of it, its lost all of the brassiness we were so fond of. The eXpo runs Windows Mobile 6.5, and it will hit AT&T on December 7th for $199 after a mail in rebate with a two year contract — plus an additional $179 should you choose to opt in on that projector.

Continue reading LG’s pico projector-packing WinMo eXpo outed for AT&T

LG’s pico projector-packing WinMo eXpo outed for AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments