Hasta La Gadget!

The Incredible S is a beguiling little beast. Looking at its name, familiar rump, and mostly run of the Android mill specs, you’d think it little more than an incremental update. And yet, pick it up and play with it for even the briefest of instances and you’ll realize that it’s somehow a lot more than that. Seemingly slight changes to the screen, in moving from 3.7 to 4 inches and from an imperfect AMOLED panel to a crisp and clear Super LCD, have earned our eyes’ approbation, while an upgraded Snapdragon under the hood, equipped with Adreno 205 graphics, infuses it with a fresh breath of firepower for those demanding HD videos and increasingly sophisticated Android games. Notably, the chip combo inside the Incredible S is the same as that contained within Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, foretelling perhaps of a PlayStation Certified future for this handset. But that’s the future — right now, there’s a big juicy review for you to dig into, so skip past the break to get started.

Continue reading HTC Incredible S review

HTC Incredible S review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re willing to bet Qualcomm’s Adreno 220 GPU is an abstract concept to most readers, but we can put it into perspective real quick — here it is in the HP TouchPad, pumping pixels and mapping textures to a seriously stunning little air combat game. We got our hands on the webOS 3.0 tablet and gave Polarbit’s Armageddon Squadron II a whirl at GDC 2011, and the
experience felt pretty solid overall, framerate only dipping significantly when unleashing a hefty barrage of rockets upon your foes. What’s more, the tablet easily — and automatically — paused our game when flexing webOS’s multitasking muscle to check a text message that had just come in. What’s that you say? You’re wondering how the HP TouchPad does text messages? Well, it doesn’t quite — it requires a webOS smartphone paired via Bluetooth to share the cellular modem for texts and calls. But you knew that already, right?

Armageddon Squadron wasn’t the only title Qualcomm had handy to show off the power of the Adreno 220, though, as SouthEnd Interactive’s Desert Winds seems to be the feather in the company’s cap. It’s a 3D action-adventure title starring some very fancy lighting effects for a mobile game — not to mention a buxom female swordslinger who dredges up memories of ATI’s Ruby. See that after the break!

Update: Adreno 220 is actually a single-core GPU, part of the dual-core Snapdragon 8×60 system-on-a-chip.

Continue reading HP TouchPad shoots down planes, shows off next-gen Snapdragon’s GPU (video)

HP TouchPad shoots down planes, shows off next-gen Snapdragon’s GPU (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Consider it a mystery solved. Throughout the week here in Barcelona, we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time chasing down suits from LG, Qualcomm, NVIDIA and Verizon Wireless to answer one simple question: “What’s up with the processor in the Revolution?” If you’ll recall, NVIDIA actually sent one of its own to Verizon’s LTE press event at CES 2011, specifically to bust out a Revolution and gloat about the Tegra 2 chip within (video’s after the break if you don’t believe us). As it stood, it seemed as if the Thunderbolt and Revolution would be butting heads from a CPU standpoint, with the former definitively sporting a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8655. And then, came the confusion. We showed up at Qualcomm’s booth here at Mobile World Congress to see which phone it was using to demonstrate the recently unveiled Netflix-on-Android support — lo and behold, LG’s Revolution was the handset of choice. Obviously, there had to be a new Snapdragon processor within, as only the newest of the new will have the necessary DRM libraries at a hardware level that are necessary to pass muster with the MPAA.

After venturing over to LG’s booth, we were also able to confirm that the only Revolution it knew of was boasting a Qualcomm CPU, and the shot above (which was sourced from there) proves it. We also confirmed with Verizon Wireless’ paperwork that the version it’s expecting in the next month or so will ship with Qualcomm inside. Finally, NVIDIA refused to comment on the matter, simply suggesting that we contact LG for more details. Put all of that together, and we’re able to come to two main conclusions. First off, it seems as if LG yanked support for the Tegra 2 at some point between CES and MWC — right around four weeks. Hard to say if there were reliability issues, an unsatisfactory amount of power drain, or just irreconcilable differences between the two CEOs (joking, of course). Secondly, it’s reasonably safe to assume that Verizon’s Revolution will be the first Android handset on Big Red to stream Netflix directly, which may please those who were planning on buying one but weren’t looking forward to going without Netflix thanks to the Tegra 2 that was (presumably) slated for inclusion. Qualcomm 1, NVIDIA 0.

Update: NVIDIA finally saw fit to drop us a line and clarify a bit. Turns out, the confirmation in the video below was a gaff to begin with, as the Revolution was never going to be outfitted with NVIDIA innards. Go figure, right?

Vlad Savov contributed to this report.

Continue reading LG Revolution using 1GHz Snapdragon MSM8655, not NVIDIA’s Tegra 2

LG Revolution using 1GHz Snapdragon MSM8655, not NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qualcomm has apparently figured out what it takes to get Netflix on Android, announcing “future devices” with its Snapdragon mobile processors (like the LG Revolution) will meet all of the DRM requirements for Watch Instantly. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to bode well for your existing Android device, but at least future phones won’t have to look on Windows Phone 7 and iOS with envy. Besides a turnkey package for manufacturers to support Netflix in their devices, it also promises plenty of dedicated decoding power to enhance battery life and improve picture quality which can be observed as it demos the Netflix app (hope they brought their own proxy) at Mobile World Congress this week.

Continue reading Qualcomm promises Netflix streaming support on ‘future Android devices’ with Snapdragon

Qualcomm promises Netflix streaming support on ‘future Android devices’ with Snapdragon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ll forgive you if you thought the Xperia Play was eons before. Let’s quickly run through its short-yet-illustrious history: we published first details in August last year, followed by the very first pictures in late October. More and more details emerged throughout the remainder of the year. By the time 2011 hit, a prototype was making the Chinese media rounds (teardown included), and then we managed to get our own Xperia Play prototype for preview. It’s at this point that Sony Ericsson joins in on the fun with its creepy Super Bowl ad reveal.

But after months of detailed leaks, early hands-on previews, and numerous executive non–denials, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is finally 100 percent official.

As we’ve heard for ages now, it’ll run Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor with Qualcomm Adreno 205 graphics and display those games on a sizable 4-inch, 854 x 480 multi-touch LCD screen, the combination of which Sony says will provide 60 frames per second playback and manage up to 5 hours, 35 minutes of battery life in a single game session with the slide-out PlayStation Certified controller. Gaming credentials aside, you’re looking at either a quad-band GSM or CDMA and EV-DO smartphone with a 5-megapixel autofocus camera, LED flash, stereo speakers, Bluetooth and WiFi functionality baked in, as well as Sony Ericsson’s Timescape UI layer.

The phone comes preloaded with a “legendary” PSone game of the undisclosed variety, as well as a bevy of popular Android games including Asphalt 6, The Sims 3 and Tetris, and Sony Ericsson promises a library of 50 additional titles available at launch from 20 publishing partners. Some games ported from existing smartphone platforms (like Reckless Racing) will have bonus content on Xperia Play, too. Local area multiplayer gaming is a go, as you’ll be able to host a WiFi hotspot on one device and join the game with another. It’s launching in March, and will be available on Verizon (a US timed exclusive) in “early spring,” suggesting that we’ll see the European launch before it hits the States.

Update: Press release, full, gigantic spec sheet and loads of video after the break!

Update 2: A brand new Xperia Play hands-on with games!

Continue reading The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (update: video and full spec sheet!)

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (update: video and full spec sheet!) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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