Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung certainly had its moment in the sun last week, but it appears that another alluring smartphone will soon emerge from South Korea — this time as the Optimus Note from LG — which presents itself in the wild and with a leaked press shot. It’s said to feature a 1.2GHz dual-core Tegra 2, along with a 4-inch WVGA NOVA display and Gingerbread. We can also expect a 5 megapixel primary shooter with an LED flash on the rear, a front-facing VGA cam up front, 8GB of internal storage and WiFi Direct capability. The device itself is 12.3mm thick, which accommodates a four-row sliding QWERTY keyboard. While this version seems destined for LG’s home territory, we can’t help but wonder if we’ll see similar specs in the Optimus Slider that’s bound Sprint. Also, since the phone has yet to become official, perhaps a last minute name change is in order? As you ponder this final point, hop the break and take a squint at Mr. Blurrycam’s finest.

[Thanks, Jungin]

Continue reading LG Optimus Note slider emerges from South Korea as dual-core Tegra 2 contender

LG Optimus Note slider emerges from South Korea as dual-core Tegra 2 contender originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Daum.net (translated), Juggly.cn (translated)  | Email this | Comments

During a sitdown with reporters yesterday, NVIDIA Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang discussed his company’s near- and long-term financial outlook, while providing some insight into the chipmaker’s quad-core future. According to Huang, NVIDIA expects to rake in between $4.7 and $5 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2013, with revenue from its mobile chip unit projected to mushroom tenfold by 2015, to a whopping $20 billion. Huang acknowledged that these predictions could be affected by external factors, including the ongoing patent wars between tablet and smartphone manufacturers, but didn’t seem too concerned about their immediate impact. “At this point, it looks like it’s much ado about nothing,” he said. In fact, Huang foresees rather robust growth in the mobile processing sector, estimating that there are about 100 million devices that will need chips this year — a figure that could soon rise to one billion, on the strength of more affordable handsets, efficient ARM processors and the rise of ultra-thin notebooks. And, despite his recent disappointment, Huang expects Android tablets to comprise a full 50 percent of the market in the near future, claiming that NVIDIA’s Tegra chips can currently be found in 70 percent of all slates running Google’s OS, and about half of all Android-based smartphones.

In the short-term, meanwhile, NVIDIA is busy developing its quad-core mobile processors — which, according to the exec, should appear in tablets during the third or fourth quarter of this year (quad-core smartphones, however, may be further down the road). Huang also sees room to develop wireless-enabled, Snapdragon-like processors, thanks to NVIDIA’s recent acquisition of Icera, but he hasn’t given up on GPUs, either, predicting that demand for graphics performance will remain stable. The loquacious CEO went on to divine that Windows 8 will support apps designed for Windows 7 (implying, perhaps, that Microsoft’s Silverlight platform will play a major role in future cloud-based developments), while contending that smaller, “clamshell devices” with keyboards will ultimately win out of over the Ultrabook strategy that Intel has been pursuing. For the moment, though, Huang seems pretty comfortable with NVIDIA’s position in the mobile processing market, citing only Qualcomm as primary competition. “We’re the only people seriously on the dance floor with Qualcomm,” he argued, adding that companies without a solid mobile strategy are “in deep turd.” You can find more of Huang’s insights at the source links below.

NVIDIA CEO sees major growth in mobile processing, quad-core tablets coming this year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 03:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gizmodo  |  CNET, Wall Street Journal, Forbes  | Email this | Comments

Acer’s Liquid Mini gets Ferrari-fied, doesn’t get any faster originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phone Arena  |  Acer  | Email this | Comments

The LG Optimus 3D certainly isn’t the slimmest smartphone we’ve ever seen, but it looks like the chunky handset is about to get seriously streamlined. In an interview with Pocket-Lint, LG developer Dr. Henry Noh confirmed that his company is working on a thinner version of its 4.3-inch phone, hinting that it may be ready for release by next year. Noh didn’t offer specifics on dimensions, but acknowledged that the current version, at 11.9mm (0.47 inches) thick, definitely isn’t the “sexiest phone on the street” — something he hopes to change. “Eventually, we want to make it so that having the 3D won’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be thicker,” Noh explained. “That’s going to be a differentiating factor that comes for free to the user.” Doing so, he claims, could help LG’s glasses-free 3D device distinguish itself from its 2D competitors:

“These days, all the phones look the same. They have a huge screen – 4.3-inches is normal these days – and next year they’re moving even larger. And they have a fixed number of touch buttons. They’re the same thickness. They have the same camera. And even the same OS. It’s so boring.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not this strategy actually pans out, but it’s definitely something we’ll be keeping an eye on.

LG developing slimmer Optimus 3D handset, might be ready for 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Pocket-Lint  | Email this | Comments

At present time, Baidu’s a desktop web browser / search engine based in China that’s meant to mimic Chrome (though it’s actually wrapped around IE code). The company, however, has its sights set on conquering the mobile front as well, introducing Baidu Yi OS at its annual get-together. The new platform is essentially a forked version of Android, which will provide a lot of the same functionality and services we’re used to seeing from Google; Baidu, though, is adding a dash of flavor by throwing in its own bundle of apps — such as native maps, reader, music, web apps, and even a program similar to Google Places — as well as strong cloud integration for backups, storage and sharing. The new OS will likely be up against intense competition from Nokia, Alibaba, Xiaomi and Windows Phone Tango (amongst others), so the Chinese mobile space may get rather interesting in the coming years.

Baidu announces Android OS alternative, confirming its mobile aspirations originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Penn-Olson, The Register  |  Baidu  | Email this | Comments