Hasta La Gadget!

AT&T wants you to know that you don’t need a smartphone just to get a rich, full web experience from your handset — theoretically, anyway — with the introduction of four new models from longtime partners Samsung and Pantech alongside a new featurephone browser. First up from Samsung comes the Flight (pictured left), billed as a “next-generation messaging device” on account of its full QWERTY portrait slide paired with a full touchscreen up top; it’ll be available next month for $99.99 on contract after rebate — that is, if you didn’t buy it on Craigslist already. That silvery slate in the middle that’s more likely to be catching your eye is the Mythic, rocking TouchWiz on a 3.3-inch display along with AT&T Mobile TV, making it a fitting successor to the Eternity and big brother to the Solstice; like the Flight, it swings onto retail next month, but you’ll be paying a stiffer $199.99 on contract after $50 rebate.

Turning our attention to the Pantech side of the table, we’ve got the Reveal (pictured right) that lets you have it both ways with a numeric keypad up top twined with a QWERTY slider underneath. It’s 3G-capable, AT&T Navigator-equipped, and available for your enjoyment on October 18 in red and blue. Finally, the Impact (not pictured) has an OLED touchscreen up front, but when the texting gets hot and heavy, the phone opens up to reveal a second display along with a QWERTY keyboard. It’ll be available in pink and blue, though neither pricing nor availability are being announced just yet.

Gluing everything together is AT&T’s new mobile browser, described as “a rich hybrid experience that gives you a HTML experience similar to your PC browser at home” that “works really well on a feature phone.” Additionally, users visiting att.net from their PCs will be able to send bookmarks to their phones’ mobile portals — kind of a neat trick, especially when you’re trying to minimize the number of URLs you have to mash out on an on-screen keyboard. Of course, featurephone browsers have a reputation for generally sucking, so considering that AT&T bills its new line of devices as “full web browsing phones,” it’ll be interesting to see how close they actually come to delivering on the claim; it’s said the phones use “advanced data compression from Opera Software,” which we’re thinking is very likely some variation of Opera Turbo — not a bad start.

Filed under: Cellphones

AT&T touts Opera-powered full web browsing with new phones from Samsung and Pantech originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gotta hand it to LG, it pulled out the big hitting hyperbole with the launch of its otherwise simplistic GD510 touchscreen phone. LG begins with a reminder that it launched “the world’s first full touchscreen phone” — the Prada — back in January 2007. A claim that Ericsson, Nokia, and others would rightfully dispute. LG then calls the brushed-aluminum GD510, or “Pop,” the “most compact 3-inch full touchscreen phone ever made,” while boasting of its simplicity. That latter claim is achieved by removing “unnecessary features” that apparently include burdensome WiFi and 3G radios since modern consumers want to browse the internet over GPRS/EDGE. Spec-wise, you get a WQVGA (note the “Q”) display, 3 megapixel camera, 8GB of internal memory, and a single home key that glows green to call or red to hang-up / cancel. They’ve also ditched the S-Class UI in favor of something that’s presumably less convoluted. There’s even an optional solar-panel battery cover which we hear is the number one requested feature on touchscreen phones… right. It does look pretty though, which is saying a lot for a phone packing a solar panel. Hitting Europe in mid October and the US at the end of October if the Bluetooth SIG entry is to be believed. Video promo after the break.

Read — Bluetooth SIG
Read — LG press release

Continue reading Video: LG GD510 touchscreen ‘Pop’ is heavy on hype, light on specs

Filed under: Cellphones

Video: LG GD510 touchscreen ‘Pop’ is heavy on hype, light on specs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Digital Cube may not be a household name in portable media players (at least on this side of the Atlantic), but there’s no doubt that its latest attempt at greatness is a real looker. The touchscreen-based i-Station E9 arrives with an expansive 3-inch panel, hardly any buttons to speak of, an FM tuner, accelerometer, video output, support for more formats than you can shake a stick at and a user interface that looks particularly fascinating. Battery life is pegged at just 12 hours for audio and 4 hours for video, but with prices set for $115 (4GB) / $132 (8GB), we won’t kvetch too loudly.

[Via Cloned In China]

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Digital Cube storms back with touchscreen-based i-Station E9 PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like we’ve got ourselves another Windows 7 launch, folks. The Eee Top ET2002 and ET2203, which have graced these pages with their touchscreens before, have ironed out an all-too-familiar launch date (October 22nd) and some fairly competitive Europe prices, weighing in at £559 and £819, respectively. That’s roughly $893 and $1,312 US, but usually the UK to US conversion on these is dramatically less than the true conversion rate (though we feel rather bad for the folks in the UK, in our own patronizing, American sort of way). Either way we’re happy to see NVIDIA ION popping up again, and the whole concept of a low-end touchscreen PC is certainly intriguing with Windows 7 along for the ride.

Filed under: Desktops

ASUS Eee Top ET2002T and ET2203T touchscreen all-in-ones land in October originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve got to hand it to ASUS — the little Taiwanese company isn’t afraid of pushing the limits in niche markets. Above is its latest Skype-certified AiGuru dedicated videophone, the SV1T. The major new feature of the all-in-one device with WiFi (or Ethernet), VGA webcam, mic, and speaker is that large 7-inch 800×480 pixel touchscreen. A compelling device if they can get the price right; its predecessor listed for $300 — about $201 too much in a market saturated by cheap netbooks.

Filed under: Household, Portable Audio, Portable Video

ASUS AiGuru SV1T videophone adds 7-inch touchscreen to 70s nostalgia originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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