Hasta La Gadget!

The Android 2.2 upgrade situation on the Galaxy S has been a veritable rollercoaster of emotions for owners recently, owing in no small part to the seemingly final firmwares that have been briefly posted and pulled from the company’s servers in parts of the world over the past couple weeks. Nordic countries have already sample the goods, but Sammy says that a “new” firmware update will be available in early November in the UK and should hit “all operator versions” of the phone (presumably including the Vibrant, Captivate, Epic 4G, and Fascinate) by the end of November. YouMobile is reporting that existing regional updates have been pulled due to general not-awesomeness, so hopefully they’ll have a chance to get it right over the next couple weeks before it starts hitting again. Follow the break for Samsung’s press release.

Continue reading Samsung comes clean with Galaxy S Froyo upgrade dates: all carriers in November

Samsung comes clean with Galaxy S Froyo upgrade dates: all carriers in November originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD said it’s bringing the new heat this week, but, in a classic act of showmanship, it’s teasing out only imagery today and insisting on making us wait until Friday to truly learn what the next generation of Radeon graphics is made of. For now, we have the full titles of its leading lights, namely the Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6850, along with plenty of pictorial evidence of their existence in a lab somewhere. We note with glee that the default output arrangement includes no less than five ports, including two DVI, one HDMI (1.4a), and two Mini DisplayPorts. We’d rather the latter two were full-sized, but it doesn’t look like ATI AMD had the room to fit them in. As to power requirements, the HD 6870 will need two 6-pin connectors to augment the juice it gets from the PCI Express port, while the HD 6850 will sate its needs with just the one. Anyhow, enjoy the gallery below and make sure to have your popcorn ready for the benchmark-heavy reviews coming up at the end of the week.

Continue reading AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 officially pictured, coming this Friday

AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 officially pictured, coming this Friday originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony has taken the time to upgrade the firmware on its minuscule NEX-5/3 system cameras to improve usability, make manual focusing easier, and allow single-shot autofocus when using A-mount glass via an adapter. The latter will be perhaps the most important thing for owners of Sony’s large-sensor compact, allowing them to use a total of 14 lenses from the company’s DSLR range without having to worry about focusing manually. Though, if you are into that kind of thing, the MF Assist mode has been improved with a new feature giving you a zoomed-in view of the area you’re trying to keep sharp — to make it easier to tell if you’re doing it right. The UI has also undergone a bit of a streamlining, which you can check out for yourself by downloading the new software from the source link below.

Continue reading Sony NEX-5 and NEX-3 firmware update adds autofocus support for company’s A-mount lenses

Sony NEX-5 and NEX-3 firmware update adds autofocus support for company’s A-mount lenses originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Big surprises, eh? Sony Ericsson has been playing fast and loose with its calendar yet again, as it has just announced that the hotly (and by now angrily) anticipated upgrade to Android 2.1 for its X10 family of devices won’t be happening until late October. We were given the gravest of assurances that the end of September would be the time our tragic wait would end, but nope, apparently “we need a couple of more weeks before we are ready to start the roll-out.” Just so we’re clear, this isn’t Android 2.2, which is Google’s current highest iteration and has been around for months now — this is the upgrade to 2.1, aka Eclair, aka the software that’s not too far away from its first birthday. SE is trying to console users with promises of HD video and continuous autofocus bundled into the Xperia X10 update, but then there’s also word that different configs of the phones will get the update at different times. So don’t be surprised if your French-speaking X10 Mini is still doing the Donut deep into November.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Sony Ericsson pushes Android 2.1 upgrade for X10 family back to ‘late October’

Sony Ericsson pushes Android 2.1 upgrade for X10 family back to ‘late October’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sammy just hit us up with a brief statement that should make Captivate owners jump clean out of their seats and do a spit take if they’re enjoying a cup of joe:

“An update to improve the Samsung Captivate’s GPS performance is now available. Captivate customers will receive a notification on their device that an update is available and will simply need to download the file to update their phone. The updates will be pushed to customers’ devices over the next few weeks.

The update for the Captivate will also improve additional device functions, such as media scanning time, add the full version of Quickoffice and address Microsoft Exchange 2003 policy support.”

Awesome, right? Of course, the proof is in the pudding — we’ll need to wait and see how “fixed” the GPS really is after this gets installed, but it’s a start. Notably, this doesn’t seem to include Froyo, so we don’t know whether these guys are going to be going the British or Spanish routes in getting that deployed.

Update: We’ve independently confirmed with AT&T that this update does include GPS improvements.

Samsung Captivate gets GPS fix, other Galaxy S versions wait patiently originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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