Hasta La Gadget!

You know, not every smartphone has to be putting down maxed-out hardware. That’s a lesson that Nokia is certainly taking to heart, concentrating many of its latest efforts on lower-end Symbian devices that it hopes will capture entire new swaths of users that’d otherwise be buying dumbphones with half the functionality (and far less than half of the revenue potential). In the world of Android, though, recent devices like the EVO 4G, Droid, Droid Incredible, and Nexus One have admittedly caused us to grow accustomed to the idea that we should all be using blazingly fast processors and huge WVGA displays.

In reality, of course, Android is an extraordinarily scalable platform; there’s a whole world of hardware (and around $200 of on-contract pricing) below today’s latest round of “superphones.” At $100 on a two-year deal, the LG Ally sort of typifies what we’d expect out of a midrange Android device right now — a gap-filler that can capture users seeking a Droid experience on a Kin Two budget. So does it hold up in the day-to-day grind, or are you going to be begging for a Droid by day two? Let’s find out.

Continue reading LG Ally review

LG Ally review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 15:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know what makes us happy? Pizza. But a close second has to be 4G technology, which makes us truly envy the Bostonians who were treated to a sample of Verizon’s trial LTE deployment in the friendly confines of a downtown pizza joint last month. Big Red filmed the event — and while the whole thing comes off a little bit like a carefully-orchestrated PR stunt, it’s hard to argue with nearly 10Mbps down and over 2Mbps on the upstream. That’s good stuff that should have Sprint, Clearwire, and the rest of the players on notice — assuming Verizon’s network holds up under the crushing pressure of commercial availability once thousands of rowdy Harvard students start hammering it, of course. Follow the break for the full video.

Continue reading 4G shocker! The good people of Boston enjoy Verizon’s trial LTE network

4G shocker! The good people of Boston enjoy Verizon’s trial LTE network originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 22:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whatever you think about the Kin devices themselves, the one thing most folks can agree on is that their monthly pricing is more than a little out of step with their target audience — except for Microsoft and Verizon, that is. Speaking to Computerworld, Microsoft senior product manager Greg Sullivan and Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney both raised the issue of the Kin’s ability to backup to the cloud when defending the high monthly price ($30 for data on top of a standard phone plan), with Sullivan saying that once customers “realize the value of this, they’ll realize it’s a great deal.” On another note, Sullivan also used some interesting language when discussing the possibility of app downloads for the Kin, saying that “over the longer term” Microsoft will be “merging” the Kin and Windows Phone 7 platforms and adding downloadable apps. Now, that’s not a radical departure from what we’ve heard from Microsoft before, but “merge” is a curious choice of words, isn’t it?

Microsoft and Verizon say Kin’s monthly pricing isn’t crazy, when you think about it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 12:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam says that his company is working closely with Google on a tablet computer. The tablet will be based on the Android operating system.

While neither Verizon or Google would confirm the hardware partner, McAdam mentioned Google in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “We’re working on tablets together, for example,” he said. “We’re looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience.”

By “archives”, we guess that McAdam means Google’s rather long list of products and services. Between Google’s books, map, email, chat, latitude and other products, it would be pretty easy to stock a tablet with all that it needs initially.

McAdam hinted that the Verizon tablet would come about in a similar way to the Droid phone, with Google’s OS, third-party hardware and Verizon’s data network. Don’t expect it too soon, either. Admitting that Verizon has been “handicapped” by its CDMA network, McAdam said new devices would be available to run on the company’s new LTE 4G network early next year.

Another tidbit from the interview: It looks like Verizon will be shutting down unlimited, per-device data plans in favor of a “bucket of megabytes.” These data-capped plans would be shared between devices — a tablet, a cellphone and an e-reader, for example.

This is exciting stuff. It looks like Apple will be facing stiffer competition in the tablet market than it ever did in the iPod market. With Android tablets now confirmed, and an HP/Palm tablet all but certain, hopefully consumers will see the benefit of all-out tablet war.

Verizon, Google Developing iPad Rival [Wall Street Journal]

Picture: nDevilTV/Flickr

See Also:

• NYT: Google Android Tablet Imminent
• Mock-ups Show a Google Chrome OS Tablet
• How to Make an iPad-Beating Tablet
• Adobe Demonstrates Flash on Android Tablet

We should know a whole lot more about this situation at an Iron Man 2-themed LG event taking place later today, but BGR appears to have scored full details on LG’s upcoming Android-equipped Ally for Verizon along with a couple key dates. Most importantly, it sounds like the landscape QWERTY slider will be available in “all channels” (read: telesales and brick-and-mortar stores) on May 20, preceded by an online pre-order this Thursday, May 13. It’s got Eclair, a 3.2 megapixel cam, 4GB microSD card in-box, and a Qualcomm MSM7627 core — the same midrange silicon that powers the Moto Devour. Against the Droid, this bad boy appears to slot just underneath in the range, but a little choice never hurt anyone, did it?

LG Ally up for preorder on Thursday, launching on May 20? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 May 2010 18:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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