Hasta La Gadget!

We knew Samsung’s been in the Windows Phone 7 game pretty much since day one, but the Korean giant’s managed to keep its Europe-bound Omnia 7 under tight wraps until mid-summer this year. Two months onwards, we find ourselves cradling this macho-looking device, and giggly flicking through the various tiles in its newborn OS. Just to freshen up your memory, we’re looking at a 4-inch Super AMOLED-donning slate, garnished with a dash of Tyrian purple aluminum on the back, and capped with some dark gray polycarbonate at the top and bottom. Well, you know the drill — join us after the break to find out how the rest of this phone fares.

This review is primarily of the Samsung Omnia 7 hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS.

Continue reading Samsung Omnia 7 review

Samsung Omnia 7 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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KDDI launched a wave of new phones this morning, but this is the one we really want to hold — it’s called the X-RAY, and it’s one of two new products in the company’s iida designer brand. Crafted by Tokujin Yoshioka, it’s a high-end Japanese clamshell with a 1-Seg TV tuner, NFC payments, and an 8 megapixel camera — you know, the usual — but with a translucent case (also available in blue and black) that leaves nothing to the imagination. There’s a QSD8650 CDMA-ready Snapdragon in there, a GSM radio as well, a 7 x 102 pixel LED scrolling sub-display to display alerts and notifications, plus all the requisite chips and wires beautifully laid out. It’ll be on display in Harajuku this Tuesday, but there’s no word on availability or price quite yet. However, given that the prime accessory for the X-RAY is a solid crystal stand that makes the phone look like it’s floating on air, we probably don’t want to know. Video after the break.

Continue reading KDDI crafts gorgeous see-thru designer phone with LED sub-display and dual-mode radios (video)

KDDI crafts gorgeous see-thru designer phone with LED sub-display and dual-mode radios (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Oct 2010 03:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC’s kicking the Windows Phone 7 era off in style today with no less than three new phones scheduled to debut on October 21 in Europe: the HD7, the 7 Mozart, and the 7 Trophy. Both the Mozart and Trophy offer a WVGA LCD screen, a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8250 chipset, 576MB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, and 720p video recording. Where the 7 Mozart sets itself apart is in having an aluminum unibody construction wrapped around its 3.7-inch display, together with a more advanced 8 megapixel imager and a Xenon flash. The 7 Trophy makes do with an LED flash illuminating 5 megapixels’ worth photons, but it does also come with HTC’s promise to be the most aggressively priced WP7 handset from the company. It’ll be a Vodafone exclusive across the big red network’s global footprint, while the Mozart will be exclusive to Orange in the UK, France, Spain, and Switzerland, exclusive to Deutsche Telekom in Germany, and available on a choice of carriers elsewhere. No peep of an American release for either handset, however.

For the home crowd, Sprint is set to deliver a HTC 7 Pro with a QWERTY keyboard that slides out and tilts — you can see it pictured in the gallery below — at some point in the first half of 2011. It too goes with the same old 1GHz Snapdragon, 576MB of RAM, 5 megapixel cam plus 720p video, and WVGA display resolution (on a 3.6-inch screen), but it gets a bump in storage to 16GB. Full spec sheets for all three phones, along with HTC’s big Windows Phone 7 announcement, await just past the break.

Continue reading HTC 7 Mozart and 7 Trophy set out to conquer the WP7 world, 7 Pro coming to Sprint next year

HTC 7 Mozart and 7 Trophy set out to conquer the WP7 world, 7 Pro coming to Sprint next year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Need a break? No chance, there are still so many more phones to look at! HTC’s sole Windows Phone 7 launch device for AT&T has just been revealed as the HTC 7 Surround. You’ll remember this as the sexily titled T8788, which made us gape back in August with its unusual design that incorporates a slideout speaker. We can now add an integrated kickstand to the multimedia-friendly physical design, while the spec sheet (available in full after the break) is consistent with the rest of HTC’s lineup. The 7 Surround offers a 3.8-inch WVGA display, a 1GHz Snapdragon chip from yesteryear, 576MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera with 720p video, and Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround Sound technologies. This unconventional handset will be exclusive with AT&T in the US and Telus in Canada. Pricing in the US will be $199.99 on contract.

Continue reading HTC 7 Surround graces AT&T with a slideout speaker, Windows Phone 7 credentials

HTC 7 Surround graces AT&T with a slideout speaker, Windows Phone 7 credentials originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This morning we had schematics, by lunchtime the HD7 received its first purported image (visible after the break), and now there’s already an even bigger and better picture showing the supposed HTC Hub-enriched Windows Phone 7 interface (see above). Any bets against the phone actually dropping into our laps by dinner time? HTCInside.de has garnished its imagery of the phone with a list of specs, headlined by a 4.3-inch WVGA screen, 1GHz Snapdragon SOC (the same QSD8250 as rumored for the Mozart), a 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, 720p video recording, and 8GB of built-in storage. No, we’re not exactly blown away by this hardware inventory either, but WMPoweruser has agreed with everything on the list, excepting a MicroSD expansion slot — its tipster doesn’t think there’ll be any such expandability.

Update: And now we’ve come across even more live imagery, though the handset they’re of is adorned with an HD3 label. Hilariously enough, the title of the Chinese forum thread they’re from reads “HD3 picked up at the bar” (according to our machine translation, anyway). Still, this supposed HD3 looks like an exact match for the earlier drawing of HTC’s jumbo WinPhone, and you’ll want to see it if only for the ingeniously integrated kickstand on the back. All yours after the break. Thanks, Ahmad!

Continue reading HTC HD7 pictured and specced by rumormongers trying to outdo one another (update: even more pics!)

HTC HD7 pictured and specced by rumormongers trying to outdo one another (update: even more pics!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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