Hasta La Gadget!

Nope. There’s no mention of a Nexus Prime in this glimpse of VZW future, but don’t let that stop you from drooling over the purported goods. The leaked shot over on IGN lays out a back-to-school road filled with Android phones a plenty, and one lone RIM entry. September 8th is gearing up to be a busy Thursday for Big Red, with launches slated for the Droid Bionic, Motorola Xoom 4G, BlackBerry Curve 9370 (the LTE cousin of ‘Apollo’?) and Samsung Stratosphere — the operator’s rumored Galaxy S II variant. The end of the month gets a 2.3 combo of Gingerbread phones as the Samsung Illusion (codenamed Viper), and HTC Bliss touch down on the 29th. Refreshes for a couple of the carrier’s early LTE phones debut in October, when the Thunderbolt gets pushed aside by the virile HTC Vigor and LG gets a redo with the Revolution 2. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab P8 (most likely the Galaxy Tab 8.9) gets an unconfirmed November mention, while BlackBerry’s PlayBook languishes in a release date grey zone. Ready for that end-of-year upgrade? From the looks of things, there’ll be no dearth of options.

Verizon Wireless year-end roadmap leaks, Android and LTE spotted on the horizon? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever let your Facebook friends determine a new product development decision for your company? Well, Village Instruments has, via an online poll in order to gauge interest in an external Thunderbolt PCI Express graphics card enclosure. Dubbed the ViDock Thunderbolt, this device will soon begin to dramatically improve the performance of today’s Apple machines. Running at speeds of up to 10Gb/second, the new T-Bolt model can move data much faster than the company’s current Express Card-connected external GPU. So if you’re rocking the new MBP model, but you’ve got a hankering for more power out of your graphics card, you better start saving your Benjamins.

External Thunderbolt graphics card for Macs to be developed soon, thanks to Facebook poll originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A teardown of the new 13-inch MacBook Air reveals the logic board, in its tiny, mighty glory. Photo courtesy of iFixit

A quick peek under the hood of Apple’s new MacBook Air reveals the company’s diligent efforts to squeeze in its brand-new Thunderbolt technology.

Gadget repair site iFixit dissected the new laptop to look at its chip board, which includes an Intel Core i5 processor and an integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics chip. The chip layout opens space for an Intel platform controller hub with Thunderbolt technology.

“Shifting to integrated graphics on the processor freed up a lot of room on the board — enough for Apple to add the sizeable Thunderbolt-capable Platform Controller Hub,” iFixit explained in a press release.

Apple released the upgraded MacBook Air on Wednesday. The newest additions to the notebook are backlit keyboards and Intel’s Thunderbolt connectivity. The Thunderbolt port technology allows for speedy data transfer that puts USB to shame.

As for wireless, the new Airs feature a Broadcom BCM20702 Bluetooth board, which supports BLE. Unlike previous generations’ Bluetooth, the new Air has 128-bit AES security, 6-millisecond latency, and better power efficiency. With OSX Lion, you might’ve noticed that the icon on the upper right is no longer the AirPort, but just “Wi-Fi,” powered by a Broadcom BCM4322 Intensi-fi Single-Chip 802.

Apple laptops in the past have been notoriously hot (temperature wise — not just in terms of looks), and to prevent unintended combustion, last-gen Airs received hefty dollops of thermal paste. The new Air, it seems, has resolved some of the cooling issues because there is far less paste than in the last generation, though the fan is still conspicuous, according to iFixit.

Previous Airs missed out on the backlit keyboard featured on the corpulent MacBook Pro. Now, from not-so-deep inside, a backlight cable powers the LEDs that illuminate the keys. But the MacBook Pro kids get one thing to brag about: the Air’s thin screen can’t accommodate FaceTime HD.

The Air’s upgrades, thanks to the circuitry inside that’s organized like a perfect game of Tetris, comes at a price. This laptop is not meant for tinkering, even in the name of repair. The RAM is soldered in (read: not upgradable or exchangeable) and the LCD panel so snug that it’s tedious to replace. Luckily, the solid-state drive (SSD), the quick, more stable, but smaller alternative to spinning-disc hard drives, isn’t soldered in, so it’s possible to upgrade for more storage.

Should anything catastrophic happen to their Air, owners will have to schlep to the nearest Apple Store — the laptop doesn’t come with a USB recovery drive this time around. Be careful with this thing.

In search of “the ultimate docking station” for your Mac notebook? Look no further than the new Thunderbolt Display, a single 27-inch model packing a 2560 x 1440 res 16:9 IPS display, one of Apple’s fancy new connectors, integrated 2.1 speaker system, and even a Firewire 800 slot. There’s also a built-in FaceTime HD camera and Mic, Gigabit Ethernet, three USB 2.0 ports and MagSafe charging for your laptop, but the big difference is that single speedy DisplayPort hookup. It can daisy chain up to six high speed devices and all those connectors mean when it’s time to take your laptop on the go there’s a minimum of cables mooring it to your desk. It’ll cost $999 to bring home in just a few days, if resolving cable clutter to your Thunderbolt-equipped Mac (required) is a good enough reason to ditch your old Cinema Display.

Continue reading Apple rolls out 27-inch Thunderbolt Display with FaceTime HD camera, built-in speakers

Apple rolls out 27-inch Thunderbolt Display with FaceTime HD camera, built-in speakers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They say Apple updates its products like clockwork, releasing something new at the same time in the same place every year. Not so with MacBook Airs anyway. The outfit’s gone and freshened up its 13-inch and 11-inch ultraportables — the second such update in nine months. Although the industrial design hasn’t changed much since the last generation, both models step up to Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors, Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards, and, of course, OS X Lion.

The 11.6-inch flavor starts at $999 with 64GB of solid-state storage, 2GB of memory and a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor. The higher-end of the two configurations costs $1,199, with the extra two hundred dollars doubling your RAM and storage. The 13-inch Air, meanwhile, starts at $1,299, with a 128GB SSD, 4GB of RAM, and a 1.7GHz Core i5 CPU. Step up to the $1,599 model and you’ll get a 256GB SSD instead. Regardless, you’re looking at Intel HD 3000 graphics across the board, along with FaceTime webcams, two USB ports (plus an SD slot on the 13-inch version), 802.11n WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0. The two differ when it comes to resolution and battery life: the 11-incher has a 1366 x 768 panel and is rated for up to five hours of battery life, whereas the 13-inch model has a 1440 x 900 screen and promises up to seven hours of juice. As for that 1.8GHz Core i7 CPU, it’ll set you back an extra $100 on the 13-inch version, and $150 for the 11-inch version. Whichever size you choose, it’s only an option for the higher-end configuration. Hit the source link to peep the specs and buy one, if you’re so inclined.

Continue reading Apple refreshes MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt, and backlit keyboards

Apple refreshes MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt, and backlit keyboards originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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