Hasta La Gadget!

We found the BlackBerry PlayBook to be a pretty solid piece of hardware, but it seems there was a problem batch — an inside source tells us that nearly 1,000 faulty tablets were shipped to Staples, and now they’re being recalled. We’re hoping that Staples (and any other affected retailers) will reach out to customers and inform them of the problem right away, but just in case that doesn’t happen, we’ve compiled a searchable spreadsheet of all 935 alleged serial numbers for you to check against your own. Find it right after the break.

Continue reading RIM recalls at least 900 faulty BlackBerry PlayBooks, here are the serial numbers

RIM recalls at least 900 faulty BlackBerry PlayBooks, here are the serial numbers originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 May 2011 21:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a well-known fact that LG’s already dominated the pixel density race in the smartphone market thanks to the Retina Display inside the iPhone 4, but we’ve yet to see similar technologies making their way to larger devices. That could change very soon, however, with Samsung and LG both announcing larger high-density panels to be showcased at SID 2011 next week. From Samsung we’ll be seeing its 10.1-inch 300ppi prototype LCD panel, which rakes up an astonishing resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 under the battery-friendly PenTile RGBW matrix (not to be confused with AMOLED and Super AMOLED’s RGBG arrangement). What’s more, Samsung also teases “commercial availability” for this technology later this year.

Things are a bit vague with LG — no specific resolutions are mentioned in the pre-show announcement, but we’re told that the company will introduce “a full line-up” of “ultra-high resolution” Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching (AH-IPS) products, including 3.5-, 4.5-, 7-, 9.7, 55-, and 84-inch panels, with a “greater number of pixels than the PPI that can be recognized by the human eye at a typical distance” — a proclamation typically reserved for the iPhone 4’s 326ppi Retina Display. Of course, LG could be misleading here — the 9.7-inch panel brought up in the press release could just be the exact same 1,024 x 768 IPS display on the iPad, but we’d be surprised if LG doesn’t have a similarly-sized prototype to fire back at Samsung’s 10.1-inch 300ppi panel. Well, keep an eye out for our SID 2011 coverage next week and we’ll let you know what goodies we find.

Continue reading Samsung and LG to showcase high pixel density LCD panels for tablets at SID 2011

Samsung and LG to showcase high pixel density LCD panels for tablets at SID 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 May 2011 02:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t confirm a Samsung-built tablet today, but he’s not saying no — in fact, the tell-it-like-it-is founder of the massive e-tailer suggested quite the opposite in an interview with Consumer Reports. “Stay tuned” was the answer, and then Bezos told the publication that if such a device were on the way, it would be complementary to Amazon’s existing Kindle, as Bezos doesn’t want to disturb the market for that “dedicated reading device.” If we were to read between the lines — which is often a bad idea — we’d say that could pave the way for an Amazon tablet to launch without a sunlight-readable screen, but it could just be that a tablet would be pricier, while the Kindle could remain relatively cheap. Speaking of E Ink, the CEO said that a color version “is not ready for prime time.” As of January, we’d agree.

Bezos says ‘stay tuned’ on potential Amazon tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s second (and final) day of I/O 2011 was all about Chrome, and unfortunately for those yearning for a Chrome OS tablet, it looks as if your dreams will remain unfulfilled. Sundar Pichai, Senior VP of Chrome, spoke candidly about the company’s intentions during an executive Q&A session follow this morning’s keynote, and he didn’t bother to mince words:

“[Chrome OS] is a new experience we’re working on. It’s hardware agnostic in a sense. We are fully, 100 percent focused on laptops. Most of the web usage — greater than 90 percent — is on laptops. That’s what we’re working on today, and we have no other plans on any other form factors.”

Any other form factors outside of the Chromebox, we’re surmising. Goog’s been pretty steadfast in its approach to Chrome OS; it’s being marketed as a software + hardware package, with both working in lockstep to provide a (more or less) guaranteed user experience. To that end, the outfit’s obviously not interested in cannibalizing any Android slate sales with the addition of Chrome OS, and while we’re bummed in a way, the promise of Ice Cream Sandwich helps to numb the pain (a little). In related news, Sundar also addressed questions regarding the company’s decision to rely on both Chrome OS and Android. When asked to “reconcile [Google’s] two big strategic visions,” he hit us with the following:

“There are a variety of experiences out there, and the web model is very different. We’re comfortable seeing them coexist. Google Movies and YouTube have web versions — when you use a Chromebook, you see how it’s different, and they’ll naturally coexist. These are very different models — if we didn’t do something like Chromebooks, I’m pretty sure someone else would.”

That last line is most telling, and it begs the question: if not Google, then who? There’s no question that companies are crowding the cloud bandwagon, but would Microsoft or Apple really have the desire to bust out a totally connected operating system? Makes you wonder if Chrome OS won a race that never actually began…

Google: ‘no plans’ for Chrome OS on tablets, any other form factors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung has yet to announce a revised release date for its Sliding PC 7 Series tablet / laptop hybrid, but the 2.2-pound netvertible slider is already available for pre-order on Amazon. According to Amazon’s listing, the 7 Series should ship with many of the same specs we noticed at this year’s CES: a 10-inch touchscreen with 1366 x 768-resolution, dual front and rear cameras (1.3 and 3.0 megapixels, respectively), a 32GB SSD, 2GB of RAM and, of course, Intel’s 1.5GHz Atom Oak Trail Z670 processor, which was originally scheduled to launch in March, before being pushed back to May. The slider will also run on Windows 7 Home Premium, and come equipped with 802.11b/g/n WiFi. When it debuted earlier this year, the Series 7 boasted optional 3G and WiMax features, as well as a six-cell battery that claimed to last up to nine hours on a single charge. Amazon doesn’t mention either of these specs in its listing, but everything else checks out with what we’ve already heard. And, at $649, it’s even a little cheaper than we expected.

Update: Looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer to order your Sammy slider, as the Amazon source link now leads to nowhere. [Thanks, Jake]

Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series now available for $649 Amazon pre-order (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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