Hasta La Gadget!

Yeah, $900 for the netbook, and a hefty chunk of change for Verizon data — you’re not made of money, right? Verizon Wireless is making things a little easier on VAIO P buyers hesitant to activate 3G service, and offering $200 rebates, in the form of a debit card, if they sign up for a two-year data contract. Hopefully Sony’s working up a similar rebate program to help with the uptick in eye care due to that impossibly high resolution screen.

Filed under: Laptops, Wireless

Verizon softens the blow, offers $200 rebates on VAIO P wireless broadband activations originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While our experience says otherwise, we really hope that the practice of launching buggy smartphones hasn’t been institutionalized. The Wall Street Journal just published a report about the “bumpy launch” of the BlackBerry Storm — a handset that WSJ sources say sold some 500,000 units in the first month following its global release. Not bad, but well off the 2.4 million launch pace seen by the iPhone 3G — the phone the Storm had hoped to unseat as sales champ. The WSJ speculates that the relatively timid response stems from buggy or otherwise “clunky software” that crippled the user experience and performance at launch only to be (partially) corrected later via software updates. An abysmal scenario which echos the buggy 2.0 software that accompanied the iPhone 3G at launch.

Now, instead of pleading for mercy at the feet of disgruntled consumers, RIM co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, calls the post-launch scramble part of the “new reality” of making complex cellphones in large volumes. A Verizon spokesman noted that return percentages are measurable in single digits (standard for a smartphone) adding, “The sales and performance of the device have lived up to our expectations.” Fine, but when expectations are high that the consumer experience will be poor, somehow that doesn’t sound like a victory to us.

Filed under: Cellphones

RIM CEO: Buggy smartphone software is the “new reality” originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our tipster tells us these bad boys can’t be activated just yet, but they’ll be available in stores as of February 1 — and you won’t need anything crazy like FiOS to get ’em. The Hub is the evolution of the Verizon One concept first shown at CES two years ago, featuring family-friendly features like a digital corkboard, scheduler, photo frame functionality, and integration with Verizon Wireless handsets to fire MMS shots straight to the screen. In a way, you can think of it as the watered-down realization of that awesome videophone in Back To The Future II, but with less teleconferencing and fax capability and way, way less Lea Thompson.

Filed under: Household

Verizon Hub in the wild on way to February 1 release originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Hub is shaping up to being one of the greatest untold gadget dramas of the past decade. Okay, maybe that’s an overstatement — but seriously, what exactly is this thing? Part of the story is that it’s a virtual corkboard and picture frame for families in the same vein as the Verizon One and AT&T’s HomeManager, but we’ve also heard that it’ll play nice with picture messaging and other services from Verizon Wireless phones — in other words, it’s the secret sauce that’ll let Verizon control your entire communications ecosystem. Word on the street is that Hubs have arrived in Verizon stores with strict orders from corporate not to bust open the boxes until told to do so, so in the meantime, enjoy a shot of the surprisingly attractive box design. We’re being told that the official launch will come before mid-February, so we’ll get this all sorted before too long.

Filed under: Household

Verizon’s Hub ultra-deskphone finally coming soon originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s no secret that HTC wants to step up its Android game, and if this new stuff is to be believed, 2009’s shaping up to be a banner year. Some cat over on PPCGeeks seems to have leaked a pretty believable ’09 roadmap for HTC, showing tons of glorious hardware that appears — at least on the surface — to go toe-to-toe with the best Palm, Apple, and the rest of the gang can bring to the table. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all have dedicated stuff in here, including a “Jasper” that looks to combine the Touch HD with the Touch Pro, a successor to the monster Athena called “Ihoth,” and this little guy, a garishly pink Android handset dubbed “Hero.” We’d expect at least some of these to be announced at MWC next month, so we don’t have long to wait — assuming they’re real, of course.

[Via wmpoweruser.com]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC’s 2009 haul seemingly leaked, packs all sorts of gorgeous originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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