Hasta La Gadget!

Will this phone ever stop surprising us? Rumblings that all HD2 devices have 576MB of RAM inside them started developing in China a little while before T-Mobile unveiled its upgraded US-bound handset with, funnily enough, the same amount of memory. Now, those trusty souls over at XDA-developers have concocted custom ROMs for everyone else to free up the extra 128MB of operational headroom, and user feedback appears to corroborate the theory. We can hardly begin to fathom the reasons for HTC disabling part of its available hardware, other than to guess that a WinMo 7 upgrade was in the company’s plans for this phone all along and it just wanted to keep its ability to handle the new OS under wraps. Video and pictorial evidence of cracking past the 448MB barrier after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading HTC’s HD2 carrying a secret stash of hidden RAM

HTC’s HD2 carrying a secret stash of hidden RAM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Your favorite ill-defined smartphone accessory is back, this time teasing us with talk of external speaker support (via mini audio jack) and wireless audio transmission. We did wonder why the Nexus One dock would have a Bluetooth connection when the phone already has one one of its own, and the trick seems to be that the dock will act as the conduit through which the Nexus will transmit music wirelessly to your nearest set of banging sound thumpers. Simple, yes, but also rather liberating for your Eclair-sporting device. Makes that $45 price seem all the more reasonable, no?

Nexus One Dock to support external speakers, make use of that Bluetooth radio? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officially speaking, the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus still have a weekend ahead of ’em before they can be sold, but if you know the right person in your local Best Buy, you could very well be playing with one hours before your contemporaries. An anonymous tipster beamed over the image you see above via our handy iPhone app, noting that both of Palm’s first entries onto Verizon’s network were in stock. Granted, neither are for sale per se, but what’s stopping you from moseying on down and giving it a shot? Nothing, that’s what.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Palm’s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus slipping into Best Buy locales everywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yea, you read that right — fifty apps loaded side by side by freaking side on the Pre Plus, and the thing just kept on ticking. The chaps over at Pre Central decided to test out specifically how much of an improvement the doubling of RAM and storage in the new handset delivered, and they were not disappointed. Opening up the same apps on both phones, they found the original Sprint Pre (sporting a mere 256MB of RAM) ran out of puff at the 13 app mark, whereas the Pre Plus soldiered on until a nice round fifty was reached. Go past the break to see the video evidence for yourself — long live multitasking!

Continue reading Palm Pre Plus shows off multitasking upgrade with 50 simultaneous apps (video)

Palm Pre Plus shows off multitasking upgrade with 50 simultaneous apps (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Without pictures or firm form factor details, it’s hard to tell exactly what Quanta is driving at here (or who it’s driving at it for), but the concept of a “computer in an iPhone form factor,” as Quanta Chairman Barry Lam so tactfully puts it, doesn’t fill us with much hope for usability. At least it probably won’t look as terrifying as this modded Dell netbook pictured above. Quanta says it’s building a “smartbook” device with a 3.5-inch touchscreen, with voice calling and web browsing the primary functionalities. We’re not really sure what even qualifies this as a “smartbook” if it’s really in an iPhone form factor, but perhaps it’s to run some sort of full-featured OS. Unfortunately, Moblin and Windows seem out, because there’s Qualcomm and ARM under the hood. If this is indeed in some sort of fold-up form factor, our greatest fear is another Viliv N5 or UMID mBook BZ experience — we just don’t think we could relive that sort of pain.

Quanta working on 3.5-inch smartbook-as-phone, hates our thumbs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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