Aug/100
Exclusive: Motorola MB520 Kobe / Diablo for AT&T in the wild
Remember that midrange, Android-equipped MB520 Kobe from Moto we told you about a few days back? Well, it’s stepping out for the first time this evening with a little help of our dear brother from another mother, Mr. Blurrycam. As we’d heard before it’s definitely destined for AT&T bearing Android 2.1 with Blur (complete with Blur logo on back), though our tipster tells us we can expect an update to 2.2 over the air. Along with “Kobe,” the codename “Diablo” is apparently being tossed around internally, though decisions have been made on what to call it when it hits shelves. A Droid X competitor it’s not — but coming off the Backflip debacle, it’s baby steps for Moto’s Android relationship with AT&T, right? Hit the break for more shots.
[Thanks, Napoleon]
Exclusive: Motorola MB520 Kobe / Diablo for AT&T in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
eStation Zeen is HP Slate? Update: Or a Compaq Android tablet for printing?
Reach deep into the grey matter and try to recall a little post we did back on December 30th of 2009. That’s the day we learned about HP’s filing for the “Zeen” trademark on a “portable handheld device.” Now here we are today, eight months and one major aquisition later, with an FCC filing for a very tablety device with 802.11b/g/n WiFi. The name? HP eStation Zeen. Unfortunately, that’s all we know due to the short-term confidentiality request put in place until December 31st. Still, product CQ720A looks very much like the mythical HP Slate don’t you think? It’s definitely a tablet of some kind. Now if only we knew the chosen OS, price, ship date, consumer or business focus, and about a dozen or so other details. Baby steps, people, baby steps.
Update: This is crazy, but we’ve now gotten multiple tips claiming that the Zeen is actually an Android-based tablet with e-reader functionality that can also dock with an HP printer and become its interface. E-reading, Zeen, magazine — get it? Based on HP’s repeated previous statements about webOS hitting printers and tablets, we’d assume the Zeen has since been shifted over to Palm’s OS, but we can’t be sure, as that would undoubtedly add development time and we’re told this thing has been kicking around for months.
Whatever this is, it appears HP still has some work to do: one of our sources described the Android-based prototype as feeling like a “brick” and being “extremely unpolished” with poor battery life. It’s also been pointed out in comments that the CQ in the product number typically indicates a Compaq device, so that could eventually be the branding. We’ll see what’s real soon enough, we suppose.
Continue reading eStation Zeen is HP Slate? Update: Or a Compaq Android tablet for printing?
eStation Zeen is HP Slate? Update: Or a Compaq Android tablet for printing? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 10:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
eStation Zeen is HP Slate?
Reach deep into the grey matter and try to recall a little post we did back on December 30th of 2009. That’s the day we learned about HP’s filing for the “Zeen” trademark on a “portable handheld device.” Now here we are today, eight months and one major aquisition later, with an FCC filing for a very tablety device with 802.11b/g/n WiFi. The name? HP eStation Zeen. Unfortunately, that’s all we know due to the short-term confidentiality request put in place until December 31st. Still, product CQ720A looks very much like the mythical HP Slate don’t you think? It’s definitely a tablet of some kind. Now if only we knew the chosen OS, price, ship date, consumer or business focus, and about a dozen or so other details. Baby steps, people, baby steps.
Continue reading eStation Zeen is HP Slate?
eStation Zeen is HP Slate? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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May/100
BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider coming next month as an AT&T exclusive?
We’ve still got thousands of unanswered questions (well, maybe not thousands, but definitely dozens) about RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 6 platform — and it’s starting to look like we might be answering those questions at retail by way of this Bold 9800 slider that’s been making the rounds lately. BGR claims that the handset is lining up for a mid- to late-June release on AT&T, with the carrier having placed a substantial million-plus unit order to lock it up as an exclusive for some undetermined length of time (much as Verizon has managed to do both with the Storm and the Storm2). We hate to point out the obvious, but from a PR perspective, June’s not the best month to be announcing and / or releasing anything that isn’t an iPhone — and when you look at the 9800’s form factor and the baby steps that BlackBerry 6 seems to make toward boosting consumer appeal, we don’t think you can make an argument that this is a sufficiently different market segment the same way you could with, say, the 9700. In other words: we wouldn’t be shocked to see this date slip a bit, assuming the rumor pans out.
BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider coming next month as an AT&T exclusive? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 May 2010 13:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apr/100
Sprint halves its quarterly customer loss, increases revenue for the first time in ages
If you can find the silver linings, the news is finally getting a little better over at the number three largest carrier in the States after countless quarters of brutal numbers. Sprint still isn’t turning a profit or earning net customer adds, but it’s continuing to stem losses by posting its first sequential rise in revenue in almost three years, clocking just under $8.1 billion for the quarter; that’s still less than the revenue it posted a year ago, but hey, at least it’s an improvement over Q4 2009’s roughly $7.8 billion. All told, that works out to a net loss of $865 million, which is also better than Q4’s $980 million. Net wireless customers fell by 75,000 — considerably better than Q4’s 148,000 — but net postpaid customers fell by a much larger 578,000, suggesting that Boost Mobile’s aggressive marketing is probably working. That’s all well and good, but it also likely means that ARPU is on a downward trend; Sprint claims it was flat sequentially and down a dollar from $56 to $55 year-over-year. All told, it seems the company’s fortunes are improving by baby steps — but is it fast enough? And how much is the EVO 4G going to mix things up?
Sprint halves its quarterly customer loss, increases revenue for the first time in ages originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
MeeGo repository going public later this month, coming to Nokia N900
Valtteri Halla — Nokia employee and one-half of MeeGo’s Technical Steering Group — has blogged up a storm this week about the first baby steps that’ll get the platform off the ground from its Moblin and Maemo roots, and from the sounds of things, we’ll be able to get our first glimpse at it on production hardware before the month’s out. Currently, the plan is to open up MeeGo’s code repository to all comers “by the end of this month,” targeting both Atom boards and the N900. Now, we certainly wouldn’t say that MeeGo’s decision to use the N900 as an early target device is indicative of an official upgrade down the line — but this is particularly interesting in light of the fact that we’ve never gotten a commitment out of Nokia to bump its latest MID to Maemo 6. And besides, considering that the average N900 customer is a bit of a hacker in his or her own right, let’s be honest: a code repository that supports the phone is just about as good as an official gold build anyhow.
MeeGo repository going public later this month, coming to Nokia N900 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
Sony prepping new line of handhelds, including PSP phone?
You know who knows everything? People familiar with the matter. In particular, they know everything when “the matter” happens to be Sony’s handheld strategy for 2010, which is said to finally include an honest-to-goodness PSP with phone capabilities — something the world’s been demanding for as long as they’ve wanted a Zunephone. According to the WSJ, the device is apparently part of a larger push by Sony to create an iTunes-like Utopian ecosystem of products this year that connect to Sony Online Service, an ecosystem that would also include a hybrid portable of some sort that “blurs distinctions among a netbook, an e-reader and a PlayStation Portable.” Details aren’t offered on this particular monster — but turning our attention back to the phone for a second, it’s claimed that Sony’s working with it in conjunction with the folks at Sony Ericsson under the direction of Kunimasa Suzuki, an exec largely responsible for the VAIO line who’s also involved with the PlayStation team. Of course, SE’s already taken some baby steps toward corporate harmony by bundling Remote Play support with the Aino, but everyone knows that PSP compatibility is the panacea; Microsoft finally buckled on the Zunephone thing with the introduction of Windows Phone 7 Series, and there’s no reason why Sony shouldn’t follow suit.
Sony prepping new line of handhelds, including PSP phone? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Feb/100
Intel said to be cooking up DDR3-lovin’ Atom N475 and Atom N455 CPUs
We’ve maintained that Intel’s range of Atom chips were simply too weak to really love and adore the way a slab of silicon should be, but that’s probably because of our infatuation with things like “overclocking” and “Core i7 Extremes.” Whatever the case, it’s beginning to look a wee bit better for the lineup, as Fudzilla has it that the company will be adding DDR3 memory support to the 1.83GHz N475 and 1.6GHz N455. Both of those chips are expected to maintain their current TDP ratings, and both are expected to launch in Q3 of this year. Nah, DDR3 compatibility won’t make your next netbook scream or anything, but when we’re talking Atoms, we’ll take all the baby steps we can get.
Intel said to be cooking up DDR3-lovin’ Atom N475 and Atom N455 CPUs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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