Hasta La Gadget!

There’s no doubt that Samsung’s Omnia II is one of the most coveted Windows Mobile smartphones out at the moment — we mean, who can really resist a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, 7.2Mbps HSPA, a 5 megapixel camera and 720 x 480 movie recording? For Americans, however, there seemed to be little hope that GSM fans would ever see a version catering specifically to their needs (read: dual-band 850 / 1,900MHz 3G “needs”)… until now. On this fine Friday, the cool cats over at the FCC have shown that there actually is a GT-i8000 headed to America with support for AT&T 3G bands, though obviously little else is known about when it’ll make its expected splash. Better hurry, Samsung — the competition’s heating up over here.

[Via Slashgear]

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung’s WinMo-powered Omnia II (GT-i8000) clears FCC, eyes AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, we’ve seen our fair share of glimpses at Garmin-ASUS’ nüvifone G60, but with the Linux-based phone just weeks away from shipping over in the Far East, these last minute looks are becoming all the more tantalizing. A reviewer over in Malaysia managed to spend a bit of quality time with the handset, and while he’s still waiting for his official review unit, he managed to snag a litany of screenshots that gives us a fantastic idea of what to expect from a user interface perspective. We have to say — we kind of dig the whimsical look at a glance, but it makes us wonder just how serious of a smartphone this thing really is. With Android already out, does this UI look like it has the chops to compete? Hit the read link and let us know.

[Via GPSTracklog, thanks Rich]

Filed under: Cellphones

Garmin-ASUS nuvifone G60 spills loads of Linux-laced screenshots originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Palm’s webOS certainly faces strong competition as it vies for attention from manufacturers, carriers, developers and consumers. But Palm was able to knock out at least one ailing offering by making webOS the replacement for the old Palm OS. For others it may not be so easy. In fact, with the barriers to entry now so high and the commitment to existing operating systems so great, webOS may be the last major smartphone operating system launched for the foreseeable future.

With webOS taking the baton from Palm OS, the number of major smartphone operating systems has stayed fixed at six. Three of them — Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and Android — are intended to be used by handset makers from multiple manufacturers, whereas iPhone OS, BlackBerry OS and webOS are used only on the handsets offered by their developer. Of course, even these “purebred” operating systems owe much to older platform technologies, with Android and webOS being built atop a Linux kernel, iPhone OS having its distant roots in FreeBSD, and BlackBerry and Android building on Java. The race to attract software to these platforms has ignited an arms race of development funds to both prime the supply pump and the promotion of app stores to lead the horses to he touch-sensitive virtual koi ponds..

Developing and maintaining a smartphone operating system is a serious and expensive undertaking that can consume a company. Producing the original iPhone caused Apple to miss the self-imposed ship date of Leopard, and third-party app support did not come until much later. Whatever Microsoft is planning in a major overhaul for Windows Mobile 7 has taken long enough to warrant the release of the interim 6.5 release that still leaves the company far behind the state of the art. WebOS development clearly took up a significant portion of the $425 million investment from Elevation Partners in Palm. And finishing a 1.0 release is just the beginning.

Continue reading Switched On: The last smartphone OS

Filed under: Cellphones

Switched On: The last smartphone OS originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Snapdragon-powered Toshiba TG01 is a beast of a phone — as Windows Mobile-powered phones go, anyway — but for Americans, there’s one small problem: it’s not clear how, when, or if it’s getting here. We still don’t have many answers there, but we’ve got one piece of very encouraging news in the FCC approval of a CDMA flavor today, bearing all the hardware you’ll need to use the phone on a carrier like… oh, you know, Sprint or Verizon. Even better, the test documents list the device as “production” — many FCC filings use prototype hardware — suggesting that this is pretty close to being ready for market. So, as we said, Sprint or Verizon have to be ramping up for this — but which one is it? Both?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Toshiba TG01 passes FCC with some CDMA thrown in originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the world patiently awaits the release of the first Windows Mobile 6.5 device, it seems like the devs behind the software are warming to the fact that folks love those touchscreens. While existing versions of WinMo — not to mention early builds of WinMo 6.5 –have focused on switching between screens via clickable tabs, a new ROM pictured over at PPCGeeks shows a subtle but significant change. If you’ll notice, the screen on the right would prefer that you swipe left or right to get from ‘Version’ to ‘Copyrights’ or ‘Device ID,’ which should absolutely delight fans of the OS who also prefer touchscreen-based phones. Now, if only we could get Microsoft to push this stuff out onto a shipping handset, we’d really have a reason to cheer.

[Via 1800PocketPC, thanks Mark]

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Recent Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM shows finger friendly approach originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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