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The 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook tablet goes on sale today in the U.S. and Canada. The PlayBook has a 1024x600 touchscreen display, and a dual-core, 1-GHz Cortex A9 microprocessor backed by a full gigabyte of RAM. It's offered in 16GB for $499, 32GB for $599, and 64GB for $699 - for even better prices check out the PlayBook on eBay.
While reviews for the new tablet have been generally positive (see our BlackBerry Playbook review,) the PlayBook had a tough time actually getting off the ground. It's been criticized for its lack of native email, calendar, and organizing apps. Furthermore, the tablet was delayed, which could be attributed to high demand for Apple's iPad. The release date, originally slated for the first quarter of 2011, was reportedly pushed back due to a shortage of touch screen panels, which Apple had already allegedly obtained for the iPad 2.
When the iPad 2 went on sale in the U.S. March 11, eager Apple fanboys were camped out in long lines in hope of snagging one of the popular tablets. In the first sales weekend, analysts estimate Apple sold nearly half a million iPad 2s. The tablet sold out within a matter of days, and the wait time went up to five weeks.
Click to continue reading BlackBerry PlayBook goes on sale, iPad 2 not worried
Gallery: BlackBerry PlayBook goes on sale, iPad 2 not worried
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Deal of the Day: iPod touch 8 GB for $184 shipped
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Hot Deals, Portable Audio / Video,
If you're in the market for a 4th gen iPod touch, you'll wanna run over to eBay with the quickness right now - for the next 20 minutes, they are selling them for $184, shipping included. That's $45 off the normal price, and these are brand new units. 1 per customer!
Be sure to keep an eye on our Deal of the Day posts for more awesome stuff, and also check out our Newegg Promo Code thread for even more hotness.
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| eBay iPod touch deal
Gallery: Deal of the Day: iPod touch 8 GB for $184 shipped
Samsung planning dual-core 2 GHz smartphones for 2012
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Handhelds, Rumors,
Samsung may be developing phones that run so fast, they'll leave today's most cutting-edge dual-core phones in the dust. The company apparently has dual-core 2GHz smartphones in the works, which would theoretically be capable of 4GHz speeds, says Korea's Maeli Business Newspaper.
"We are planning to release a 2GHz dual-core CPU-equipped smartphone by next year," the paper reports a "high-ranking official" from Samsung said. "This product will have the data processing capacities of a regular PC."
The report comes as dual-core 1GHz phones such as the Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X, which was the world's first dual-core phone, are just beginning to become available. A phone running with two 2GHz chips would technically be capable of running at speeds up to 4GHz, though real-world tests almost never match specs.
Click to continue reading Samsung planning dual-core 2 GHz smartphones for 2012
Gallery: Samsung planning dual-core 2 GHz smartphones for 2012
HP to tie in music and movie service to TouchPad?
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Rumors,
Hewlett-Packard is reportedly preparing a movie and music service that would be tied to the upcoming HP TouchPad, according to a report.
According to PreCentral, HP sent out a PowerPoint presentation to some people who signed up for email notices about the HP TouchPad. That presentation included details about an upcoming HP Music Store and HP Movie Store.
The presentation included two mockups that showed, well, movies and music. A copy of the slide that PreCentral published, however, did not include any pricing.
The presentation apparently included one interesting feature, however, a sort of predictive caching.
"According to that slide, the TouchPad will come with a music syncing solution built-in that utilizes cloud servers to sync and remotely store your music," the site wrote. "More than that, it will leverage a 'smart algorithm' to ensure that the music the user is most likely to listen to is cached locally on the device. This service will also allow TouchPad owners to stream music that they don't yet own. There's also mention that this service will allow you to stream music to HP smartphones, presumably once they too are updated to webOS 3.0 like the TouchPad."
Click to continue reading HP to tie in music and movie service to TouchPad?
Gallery: HP to tie in music and movie service to TouchPad?
What a difference a month makes. In March, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) was pushing for the federal government to provide every student in the U.S. with an Apple iPad. This week, Rep. Jackson complained that iPads were "probably responsible for eliminating thousands of jobs."
Somewhere along the line, he seems to have discovered that iPads are manufactured in China, not in the U.S.—a;nd; it had him hopping mad (see video below). Here's what Rep. Jackson said Friday afternoon on the House floor:
"In the 112th congress, unemployment is at 9 percent. And not a single piece of legislation considered by the 112th congress has done anything to address 13 million unemployed Americans.
"A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs ... now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine.
Click to continue reading Jesse Jackson Jr. calls iPad a job-killer
Gallery: Jesse Jackson Jr. calls iPad a job-killer
After months and months of anticipation, Research In Motion's debut tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, is finally here. The good news is that the user interface for the new BlackBerry Tablet OS is beautiful, graceful, and operates with a simplicity that rivals that of the Apple iPad 2 ($499) and bests the Motorola Xoom's ($599-$799) oft-cluttered screens. The bad news is that, at launch, there's a lot missing. First, there's no native e-mail support. (Didn't the RIM usher in the era of mobile e-mail with the BlackBerry?) The PlayBook also suffers from a dearth of compelling—or smooth-functioning—apps. Then there's the absence of should-be-standard features—why include a front-facing camera, but no video-chat app? Updates, RIM promises, will bring much of what's missing to the PlayBook in the near future. Throw in some better app selection, too, and the PlayBook may be worth revisiting down the road, but right now, it's unfinished.
The Wi-Fi-only BlackBerry PlayBook comes in three storage capacities—16GB ($499), 32GB ($599), and 64GB ($699). The PlayBook is priced identically to the Wi-Fi-only Apple iPad 2 for the same storage capacities. Currently there's no version with cellular service, though BlackBerry users can use their smartphones as hotspots for the tablet at no extra charge. RIM has announced a 4G PlayBook that's scheduled to launch this summer, along with LTE and HSPA+ versions that will be available later this year. Sprint has confirmed it will carry the WiMAX 4G model, and Verizon and AT&T are widely rumored to pick up the LTE and HSPA+ models respectively.
Click to continue reading BlackBerry Playbook review
Gallery: BlackBerry Playbook review
iOS 4.3.2 now available
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Software,
Apple just released iOS 4.3.2 for download, a small update that aims to fix a couple of annoying bugs that some have been experiencing:
- Fixes an issue that may have caused blank or frozen video during FaceTime calls
- Resolved the problem preventing some international users from connecting to 3G on their iPads
- Includes all the latest and greatest security fixes
The release works with GSM iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, 3rd and 4th gen iPod touch, and both iPad and iPad 2. For whatever reason, CDMA iPhone 4 owners on Verizon still have no iOS 4.3 update. If you update and find any other additions, let us know in the comments!
Gallery: iOS 4.3.2 now available
WebOS 3.0 SDK leaks, gives details on HP TouchPad
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Software,
What will the HP TouchPad's WebOS 3.0 operating system look like and be able to do? A leaked version of the WebOS 3.0 SDK offers a sneak peek of Hewlett-Packard's long-awaited media tablet.
PreCentral got its hands on a WebOS 3.0 Beta 1 emulator courtesy of "an awesome (and anonymous) tipster" and the site's Derek Kessler on Wednesday posted a video walkthrough of the UI and several applications running on the emulator (video below).
Kessler noted that the emulator runs on more powerful hardware than it will in the TouchPad, a Wi-Fi version of which is due out this summer, to be followed by 3G and 4G products later in the year. He also had to use a mouse to operate what will be a touch interface to run the demo.
Click to continue reading WebOS 3.0 SDK leaks, gives details on HP TouchPad
Gallery: WebOS 3.0 SDK leaks, gives details on HP TouchPad
Why the Flip camera failed
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Cameras, Editorial, Features, Handhelds, HDTV, Portable Audio / Video,
The Flip was never my favorite pocket camcorder. That's partly because it was the darling of everyone else and also because I found more powerful options elsewhere, like the Kodak Zi6 (and then Zi8). Both offer HD video capture, a microphone-in jack and removable media. Flip didn't offer any of that; the Flip team always told me that those features would likely confuse consumers who just wanted to capture video.
Now I realize they were right. In fact more right than any of us had imagined.
A day after Cisco unceremoniously dumped its $590 million purchase in favor of a pure business strategy, Flip owners and even the Flip CEO are busy licking their wounds and wondering exactly what happened. I'll tell you what happened: A device came along that made video capture and sharing even easier than the Flip—end of story.
Flip's demise has to be one of the most spectacular flameouts in recent tech history. When I met with Flip last year (just prior to the launch of the ill-fated Flip SlideHD), Flip had marketshare numbers that looked not only unbeatable, but unstoppable. According to Cisco executives:
- Flip sales grew by 300 percent between 2008 and 2009.
- Flip led the category throughout the 2009 holiday buying season.
- Flip sold more units than Sony, Canon, Kodak, and JVC combined.
- Flip cameras were number nine out of Amazon's top 10 selling products.
- The "Shoot and Share market" grew over 35 percent in 2009 and and Flip's share of that? A whopping 93 percent.
- On CNN's popular iReport user-generated news section, 70 percent of the user-gen video was shot with a Flip.
This was the success story to beat all success stories. And while I complained even then that Cisco wasn't innovating enough with the Flip brand—I wanted a microphone jack and was begging for them to be the first to offer optical zoom—I could not argue with its success.
Click to continue reading Why the Flip camera failed
Gallery: Why the Flip camera failed
HTC Sensation 4G for T-Mobile: Hands On
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Handhelds,
HTC's beautiful new smartphone for T-Mobile, the HTC Sensation 4G, has a great-looking case, a super-sharp screen, a dual-core processor, and the latest version of Android, dressed up with some terrific HTC enhancements. It's all enough that you can overlook the one big thing it doesn't have: 4G.
As we mentioned earlier, the Sensation is HTC's follow-up to the excellent MyTouch 4G, and it looks like a more professional model than the somewhat cute-and-cuddly MyTouch. It's a gray slab phone with a gray, cosmetic stripe up the middle of the back. The Sensation is comfortable to hold, and it's similar in size to Verizon's HTC Thunderbolt, although it's thinner.
All of the Sensation's specs have been boosted from the previous model, except one. The phone has a super-sharp, super 4.3-inch 960-by-540 LCD screen and a Qualcomm dual-core 1.2-Ghz Snapdragon processor. It runs Android Gingerbread 2.4, and has an 8-megapixel camera on the back capable of recording 1920-by-1080 video at 30 frames per second. There's a VGA front-facing camera for video chat, an HDMI output port, 1GB of built-in storage along with a MicroSD card slot, and a very strong 1520 mAh battery keeping it all running. It will be very interesting to compare this to the somewhat similar LG G2x, another high-end, dual-core Android phone arriving on T-Mobile soon.
Click to continue reading HTC Sensation 4G for T-Mobile: Hands On
