Hasta La Gadget!

Well, this is intriguing: Walmart just officially announced that it’ll be selling the 16GB iPhone 3GS for $97 starting Tuesday, a full $100 off the regular price. Given the high probability that Steve Jobs will introduce the thoroughly-leaked next-gen iPhone when he gives the WWDC 2010 keynote on June 7th, the price cut seems like either an attempt to clear out remaining inventory or a way to slide the 3GS down the line to replace the $99 8GB iPhone 3G — a move which would corroborate some whispers we’ve heard today that the 3G is no longer being shipped to stores. Either way, the 3GS just got a lot cheaper, which is never a bad thing, but we’d still say potential iPhone owners should wait a couple weeks and see what’s coming next.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Walmart officially cuts iPhone 3GS to $97, potentially clearing out inventory for the iPhone 4? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 19:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That new prepaid business for the anti-power user crowd that Sprint was fixing to launch? Yeah, it’s here and it’s official: meet Common Cents Mobile. Billed as a way to help folks “cut unnecessary costs,” Common Cents Mobile is about as simple as it gets, offering pay-as-you-go 7-cent minutes and 7-cent text messages, plus unlimited messaging for $20 a month and data for $1 per megabyte per day. The bigger news, though, might be that voice minutes round down, which is a first in the US market as far as we know (in other words, frugal customers will want to make sure they hang up 59 seconds into the minute). As you might expect, the handset selection is bare-bones and easy on the pocketbook, consisting of the LG 101 at $19.77, the Samsung M340 at $39.77, and Kyocera’s portrait QWERTY S2300 coming in at $69.77 — all totally contract-free, of course. Look for these all to launch in select Walmarts across the land starting this Saturday, May 15. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Common Cents Mobile becomes Sprint’s latest prepaid brand, exclusive to Walmart

Common Cents Mobile becomes Sprint’s latest prepaid brand, exclusive to Walmart originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, here’s a bit of an interesting surprise — Dell’s Inspiron One 19 all-in-one desktop, previously only announced for Japan and still not on Dell’s US website, kicking back at a Walmart in the US of A. From the looks of it, the specs are more or less in line with what we’ve heard before, including an 18.5-inch widescreen display, a Pentium Dual Core E5400 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 640GB hard drive, along with a price said to be “around $600.” Unfortunately, there’s no indication of how widespread availability is right now, but feel free to let us know in comments if you happen to spot one.

[Thanks, Steve]

Dell Inspiron One 19 all-in-one turns up at Walmart originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wal-Mart on Monday confirmed that it will purchased online movie service Vudu for an undisclosed sum.

The deal is expected to close in the next several weeks.

“The real winner here is the customer,” Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman for Wal-Mart, said in a statement. “Combining Vudu’s unique digital technology and service with Wal-Mart’s retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment.”

Wal-Mart said that Vudu will continue developing entertainment and information delivery solutions like Vudu Apps, its delivery platform for Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players. Vudu currently has a library of 16,000 movies and licensing deals with almost every major studio, as well as independent distributors.

“We are excited about the opportunity to take our company’s vision to the next level,” said Edward Lichty, Vudu executive vice president. “Vudu’s services and Apps platform will give Wal-Mart a powerful new vehicle to offer customers the content they want in a way that expands the frontier of quality, value and convenience.”

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year, Vudu announced that it would abandon its hardware business for partnerships with established manufacturers. Sharp, Sanyo, and Toshiba said they would release products like Blu-ray players and HD TV’s with built-in access to the Vudu service. Prior to CES, Vudu was available in about eight products from LG and Mitsubishi – a number that jumped to 50 at the annual electronics conference.

Look, we’ve all had rough days. Ones that we wish never even happened, in fact. But we’ve yet to be pushed to the brink where the only logical solution to blow off steam would be to take an aluminum baseball bat to nearly three dozen TVs that weren’t ours. For whatever reason (the accused is pleading the Fifth), Westley Strellis waltzed into a Walmart just outside of Atlanta yesterday, where he proceeded to lift a bat from the sporting goods section and then demolish the screens of 29 televisions in the electronics department. Shortly after, he submitted to a pair of handcuffs and 29 counts of criminal damage to property in the second degree, and if the initial tallies are correct, he somehow managed to mar over $22,000 worth of goods. Chin up, Mr. Strellis — maybe you’ll end up in a cell next to this brainiac.

P.S. – Store footage of the rampage is after the break.

Continue reading Walmart shopper takes a bat to 29 TVs, lobbies to join Braves’ spring training squad

Walmart shopper takes a bat to 29 TVs, lobbies to join Braves’ spring training squad originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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