Hasta La Gadget!

Windows Phone 7 is really building up a head of steam, as AT&T and Microsoft are said to be planning a debut event for new handsets on October 11 in the US, to be followed by a retail launch in the week commencing November 8. A trifecta of launch devices is on tap, says the Wall Street Journal, with one each from LG, Samsung and HTC, and AT&T is unsurprisingly fingered as the exclusive early carrier for WP7 goodness. In exchange for that little favor, Microsoft will receive AT&T’s “marketing support” in pushing the message out about Windows Phone 7’s release. So long as nobody decides that home party packs are a good idea, we’ll be cool with whatever.

AT&T launching Windows Phone 7 handsets on November 8, unveiling them October 11? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know a device is due for a refresh when the only thing left to write about it is rumormongering of a possible upgrade. Today it’s the turn of Apple Insider, citing sources in Taiwan, to declare that an 11.6-inch LED-backlit display will be headlining a long overdue update to Apple’s MacBook Air. We’ve heard this scuttlebutt before, and the idea that the Air would be shrunken in order to better differentiate it from the MacBook Pro line carries a lot of believability, but we’re still a little jaded from previous misleading rumors on the same subject. At least this one comes with all the gravitas of DigiTimes, whose scribes suggest Quanta has an order to build up to half a million 11.6-inch “MacBooks” for Apple in 2010. All that said, we still wouldn’t be surprised if Apple let another holiday period go by without updating its unhealthily thin 13.3-inch laptop.

MacBook Air suffers another bout of 11.6-inch display rumors originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:40:00 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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1GHz Qualcomm QSD 8250, 576MB of RAM, 1,300mAh Li-Pol battery, 3.7-inch WVGA Super LCD screen, and an 8 megapixel camera with Xenon flash around the back. Those are the handsome, albeit somewhat predictable, specs of the purported HTC Mozart we have on show today. It looks and reads very much like HTC has just transported the Nexus One/Desire recipe into the Windows Phone 7 world, which isn’t exactly the worst idea in the world. But you know what, every time we see one of these WP7 devices in action, we’re taken aback by the swiftness of their responsiveness (honestly, Microsoft didn’t have to pay us to say that… not extra, anyway), so do yourself a favor and witness this humbly-named device cranking through a Bluetooth pairing process after the break.

Continue reading HTC Mozart shows off Windows Phone 7 credentials on camera, teases specs (video)

HTC Mozart shows off Windows Phone 7 credentials on camera, teases specs (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 04:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A report from TechCrunch today claims that Facebook may be working on a phone of its own to compete in the ever-warming smartphone race. According to a “source who has knowledge of the project,” the social networking site has put two high level employees to the task of creating a smartphone which will allow deep integration with Facebook contacts. Apparently, says the source, Facebook has been concerned that Apple and Google represent some kind of threat as competitors, though there is rather deep Facebook integration in the Android platform, and even the iPhone app allows for contact merging. Additionally, the site speculates that the device could be targeted at the low end of the market ($50 or less), which would not place it as a direct competitor to anything but featurephones. The article goes as far to suggest that Facebook and Spotify investor Li Ka-Shing (who apparently had a hand in the Spotify featurephone with INQ) may have started putting those efforts and relationships into the Facebook handset. But, INQ’s been down this road with Facebook already — take a look at the INQ1.

Still, TechCrunch says that Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos are “secretly working on the project,” which is being kept tightly under wraps; even Facebook employees are in the dark about the plan. Hewitt and Papakipos have certainly both worked in this space: the former created the Facebook iPhone app, and the latter was head of Google’s Chrome OS team until June. But the article strangely leaves out what could be the most telling piece of the puzzle — the departure of Android’s lead project manager, Erick Tseng. After leaving the company in May, he went directly to Facebook to take on the job of head of mobile products. Keep in mind, Erick was high-up enough at Android to act as a spokesperson for the brand — even appearing on the Engadget Show to talk about the platform.

But does this make for a Facebook Phone in our future? That’s not so clear — the idea that the company would see an opportunity in an already overcrowded smartphone marketplace is questionable, and if it’s truly worried about the major players, it wouldn’t be targeting a low end handset. We also may be giving the company a little too much credit to think that it can pull off being a heavy hitter in the social networking space (platform and all), and make a dent in the hardware and services game (remember, the competition is Microsoft, Apple, Google, RIM, and Nokia). Like all rumor and speculation in the gadget world, take it with a grain of salt, but you can be sure we’ll be putting our feelers out to get a concrete answer on this one.

Update: Facebook wasted no time today shooting the idea down: “The story, which originated in Techcrunch, is not accurate,” a spokesperson told Mashable. “Facebook is not building a phone.” The company told the publication that it’s focusing on “deep integration” with existing mobile platforms, but that “building phones is just not what we do.”

Is Facebook working on a phone? (update: No.) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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