feedburner
Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

feedburner count

Samsung Reveals 13 New Handsets

Labels: , , ,

Remember that so-called Samsung handset running Android? Apparently, this is where the picture was taken from. Maybe someone counted wrong, but I see 14 handsets. Apparently, 12 of these phones haven't even been officially announced before. Anyways, one of the phones that were shown at this Amsterdam event was the Samsung OmniaHD which was shown off at CES. At the event they mentioned 2 versions of the OmniaHD which is kind of weird and confusing. One of them running the standard S60 5th Edition and the other running WinMo 6.5. If those rumours are true then we'll see a Windows Mobile device capable of shooting 720p video, sporting a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen display, WiFi, GPS, and even an 8MP camera. Don't forget that the OmniaHD is only 12.7mm thin. We'll see what transpires from these rumours.

[Boy Genius]



Google Chrome Update Even Faster / Has New Features

Labels: ,

Google Chrome got a couple of new features in their new beta build. It scored a 100/100 on the Acid3 test, but it also says that it failed too, which is weird (click picture above for more information). Besides increasing the speed 25% in the V8 benchmark tests and 35% on Sunspider test, the new beta has autofill (although I can't find it), full page zoom (which I love), autoscroll, and a new tab drag feature which is what you will find in the 5 second video clip below. I've had the build for a while now and I didn't even notice these features because they're difficult to find, but nonetheless they are powerful and they work fine.

When I first watched the 5 second clip, I couldn't even figure out how to do the new tab drag myself, but after about a minute of frustration I finally figured it out. If you drag a tab to the side and center of another window it will split the tabs. If you drag the tab to the middle and top of your monitor it will maximize. And if you drag the tab to the middle and bottom of your monitor it will expand to cover the bottom half of your screen. 2 more tab drag features are dragging the tab to the middle and left or right of your monitor which imitates the new Windows 7 feature. It maximizes to either the left or right side of the screen. My explanation may be lengthy, but if you're on the Google Chrome build 2.0.169.1 just drag the tabs around and you'll find out what I'm talking about on your own. Anyways, here's the clip.



[Lifehacker, Beta News]

iPhone 3.0 OS Press Conference Semi-Live Blog!!

Labels: , , , ,

After Apple's constant bragging about selling 13.7 million iPhone's last year, 17 million iPhone's to-date, and 30 million iPhones and iPod Touch's altogether, they mentioned that Gameloft loves their App Store. They also mentioned that 96% of apps submitted for submission get accepted and that 62% of the developers are new. This may or may not be a good thing, since only 16% of said developers have 5 or more years of experience. There have been 800 million apps downloaded off of the App Store, which is a whole lot. That's an average of 27 downloads for each user of either the iPod Touch or the iPhone (according to my calculations), Wow! They chose using "Push" notifications over running background apps because it saves battery life. You don't want the iPhone's battery life to get worse now do you? I wonder what problems the Palm Pre's battery will have running background apps. Apple mentioned that Meebo is going "native" on the iPhone. They demonstrated Meebo on the iPhone and had a couple of typing errors (Sire instead of Sure). See Apple, that's what happens when you don't have a physical QWERTY keyboard!

EA began to show off a game, The Sims, and as of right now there has still been no mention of the rumoured cut and paste. They show the ability to stream ESPN. Anyways, after a bunch of uninteresting information they continued it by announcing a new game called "Touch Pets." I LOL'd. They also mentioned a new FPS game for the iPhone called LiveFire. Apparently, Touch Pets looks like Nintendogs with the addition of multiplayer and "content expandibility." Afterwards, they show a live demo of LiveFire and the person showcasing the game actually got owned. It just looks, to me, like a bunch of apps meaning to suck all of the money out of your wallet. Thankfully, the demonstrator got a kill right before they ended the demo. They show a hilarious app called Leaf Trombone: World Stage, talk about an attractive name. If you couldn't guess what it is, it's a music app and they went right on ahead and played "Phantom of the Opera." So far this press conference has been pretty uninteresting, but I'm sure the intensity will pick up sooner or later.

I was right! They've finally mentioned the use of Cut, Copy and Paste, and after a big applause they demonstrated it. It works across all apps!

Keep your heads high iPhone users, with the new iPhone 3.0 OS you also get MMS support. The iPhone Calendar is getting CalDAV which is the "sharing protocol used by Google Calendar and a number of other online calendar services." The iPhone is also getting a Homepage facelift, called "Spotlight" which is a place to search anything you want on your iPhone.

Apple recaps the new iPhone 3.0 OS mentioning: Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS support, stereo Bluetooth, Calendars getting CalDAV, Voice Memos, and Spotlight. The new 3.0 OS will be available starting today as a developer beta. The iPhone is available in 80 countries, but only 62 of those countries are App Store compatible. Starting today they have added 15 countries to that list, so make it 77 countries that are App Store compatible. I feel sorry for those 3 left out countries. The new iPhone 3.0 OS will be shipping as a free update to all iPhone owners and will be available for $9.95 for iPod Touch users this Summer (June). All features will work on the original iPhone except for MMS and stereo Bluetooth, sucks for those users. After the actual press conference there is a Question & Answer slot. They confirm that there is still no Flash support! Too bad iPhone users. Last, but not least, they also mentioned that they are still working on tethering for the iPhone.

[Engadget, TechCrunch]

PS3 Price Drop Coming March 22?

Labels: , ,

The current rumour comes from an EB employee, so it's undetermined how believable it could be. Apparently, the Playstation 3's expected price drop will be coming on Sunday, March 22, just 5 days away. This price drop would be right before GDC (Game Developer's Conference) and the sources also say that Sony themselves will hold a press conference this Saturday to announce this so-called price drop. Sony's 80GB model of the PS3 is rumoured to be dropping $99 to $300 USD. What do you think? Is the price drop less than a week away? I sure hope so, but the price is still out of range for my budget. But, I will be that much closer to getting one, I can't wait. We will find out whether this is bogus after this weekend.

[2 Old 2 Play, Game Guru]

Continue The Samsung Party; First Android Device?

Labels: , ,

Finally a decent picture of Samsung's first Android device. While this is still unconfirmed, Engadget seems to think this is the real deal. Apparently, this picture was ninja'd (stolen) from a dealer show in Amsterdam. The phone is said to have a capacitive touchscreen, a 528MHz processor, a fairly large storage (although unknown), a microSD slot, and may also have quad-band GSM. This means that it will be released on American soil (possibly also Canadian). This could be Canada's first phone running Android (the Google OS) and I'm definitely excited to see better pictures and a full spec sheet on this device. And, I hope this is going to be Canada's first Android device. Cross your fingers!

[Engadget]

The Samsung Lucello and Chianti

Labels: , , ,

Sprint is really pushing out Samsung phones in the next couple of months. And here's 2 more mobile handsets: the Samsung Lucello and the Samsung Chianti. First I'll talk about the Samsung Lucello (pictured above). This phone is a dual-slider: it can slide out for a standard numeric keypad and can also slide out to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard. I think this is great and I'm still wondering how the phone can manage to do that. Obviously, if I ever held the phone in my hands for 5 seconds, I'd realize how this was possible. Anyways, the phone has a 2.6-inch TFT display with a 240 x 320 resolution, a subpar 2MP camera, a microSD slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, and even 3G (no WiFi). You can expect this handset in Q2 / Q3 from Sprint.

The handset above is the Samsung Chianti. This smartphone is also a slider (but not a dual-slider) and it reveals a QWERTY keypad. The display is a decent, but small, 2.6-inch TFT with a 320 x 240 resolution. The phone also comes with the same 2MP camera, microSD slot, Bluetooth, GPS, and 3G, but is, again, clearly missing the WiFi action. The 4 Samsung handsets (Ace II, Dash, Lucello, Chianti) do have very similar features, but they differ in the fashion department. Ranging from a full touchscreen (see Dash) to a dual-slider (above Lucello). You can expect the Chianti in Q3 this year, via Sprint.

Update on August 5th: We finally got an update on the Samsung Chianti. It is rumoured to be available on Sprint starting on August 16th and will be launching as the Samsung Reclaim M560. Check out more about it here.

[Phone Arena (Lucello), Phone Arena (Chianti)]

The Samsung Dash From Sprint

Labels: , ,

On the first glance, the Samsung Dash (Samsung Instinct successor) really does impress. With its gorgeous 3.2-inch touchscreen display that sports a 320 x 480 resolution and its 5 megapixel camera, the Pre could be in some trouble. I lied. The Dash is lacking a physical QWERTY keyboard, going with the full touchscreen look instead. It also has a microSD slot, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. The phone has a good spec sheet and will be released under Sprint in Q2 of this year. Of course, there is no word on the price of the phone, so just look out for it in the upcoming months.

[Phone Arena]

The Samsung Ace II From Sprint

Labels: , , , ,

The Samsung Ace II is expected to be released by Sprint in Q3 of this year, so it's not too far away. If you're waiting for this phone, you have come to the right place. The specs are as follows: a 2.6-inch TFT display with a 320 x 240 resolution, a 3 megapixel camera, FM radio, a microSD slot, a QWERTY keypad (obviously), Bluetooth, 3G, WiFi, and GPS. Sad news? It will be running on Windows Mobile 6.1 which, everyone should know by now, is god-awful. Price is unknown, but you should see it in Q3 this year, after the Palm Pre's launch.

[Phone Arena]

Motorola VE465; Not Innovative At All

Labels: ,

I've talked a bit about Motorola's new "innovative" lineup, such as the Motorola Evoke QA4, but it's time to head over to the more traditional and ugly Motorola handsets. This so-called rugged handset has apparently been scooped up by Alltel and Telus. The price and availability is still unknown, but I do have the spec sheet for all of you still interested in this handset. The VE465 has a 1.9-inch internal display with a 176 x 220 resolution, a 1.05-inch external display with a 96 x 80 resolution (pictured above), Bluetooth, MMS / SMS, a 1.3MP camera, microSD slot and a bunch of other uninteresting and standard features. As you can tell, this phone isn't a high-end phone. It's no surprise since Motorola doesn't have any high-end phones, especially since the Touch ZINE HD was debunked.

[Boy Genius]

2 More HTC Android Handsets By The End Of The Year

Labels: , , , ,

Thank you HTC. HTC's CEO Peter Chou has said that there will be 3 new HTC handsets running Android by the end of the year. This means the HTC Magic (pictured above) plus 2 new handsets from HTC, I guess we'll have to double check that HTC roadmap for the year. I'm so excited for Android to blow up the mobile market and then the netbook market. I love Google (even though they are apparently more evil than Microsoft), so I hope they don't let me down. I really hope the next Android phone resurrects the physical QWERTY keyboard, please HTC.

[Engadget]

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Delayed Until June

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Mozilla Firefox 3.1 was supposed to be released in early 2009, supposedly January, but it looks like things are being delayed over at the Mozilla Camp. Firefox 3.1 has been renamed to Firefox 3.5 to signify many changes and all of the mumbo jumbo. I'm excited for Firefox 3.5, but I doubt I will even use it, thanks to Google Chrome. Anyways, Mozilla just released Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 last week and it's fairly fast. I've used it a couple of times, but I feel that it's still lagging behind the likes of Google Chrome 2.0. Well, Mozilla evangelist, Chris Blizzard, has just said that after a couple more release candidates for Firefox 3.5 it is expected to be released in "two to three months." That means we'll see Firefox 3.5 in either May or June, which makes the total delay a good 6 months. With Opera touching up on their Alpha 10 version, Apple touching up on the new Safari 4, with Google modifying Chrome to finally get add-on integration, and with Internet Explorer slipping off the table it leaves one to wonder if Firefox will give up some of its share on the browser market. I don't think it will happen, but only time will tell.

[The Register, Maximum PC]

Dell Adamo 9 and Studio One 22

Labels: , , , , , , ,

So, we finally know a bit about the Dell Adamo 13 and also the Dell Studio 19. According to a recent slip-up by Dell themselves, we can spot 2 more products from Dell that are on the way soon. The Dell Adamo 9 is a possible netbook running XP (hopefully) and it looks like they're also preparing a 22-inch model to their Studio One all-in-one computer. It'll be interesting to see what both of these products look like. I'm excited about the 9-inch Dell Adamo with a cheaper base price.

[Engadget]

BlackBerry 8325; The Real [Ugly] Gemini

Labels: , ,

I talked about the BlackBerry Gemini before, but apparently my sources were incorrect and had a mix-up between two devices. So, the sexy BlackBerry 9300 (codenamed Javelin or Onyx, I'm not sure) was mistakenly placed with the Gemini codename, but this is in fact incorrect. The Gemini is actually the BlackBerry 8325. And my, oh my, it reminds us why BlackBerry's should indeed stay black. The BlackBerry 8325 looks like it is an ugly cross between the 8300 and the 8900. Not a good thing. The BlackBerry itself comes with OS 5.0, a 320 x 240 resolution, a QWERTY keypad (of course), Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE, a 2.0MP camera, and also WiFi 802.11b/g (and possibly also n). Personally, I think it's an ugly looking BlackBerry, what do you think?

[Boy Genius]

Details On The New Dell Adamo

Labels: , ,

The beautiful and new Dell Adamo will be released later today for $1,999.99 and while this may be an attractive price for some of you, wait until you see the spec sheet. So, the Adamo 13 will sport a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U9300 processor with just 2GB of DDR3 RAM and it also has a 128GB SSD. I guess it will be running on Vista since it's not a netbook. By March 26 these babies will be shipping to their rightful owners. I hope that there are some more Adamos revealed in the new feature, especially one with a more attractive price and spec sheet. That $1,999.99 price tag is not looking so attractive now with that lackluster spec sheet, is it?

[Engadget]

Bang & Olufsen's BeoVision 8 LCD HDTV

Labels: , , ,

Since I'm fairly new to this technology and blogging world I've actually never heard of this Bang & Olufsen company before (until the Samsung M7600 came out). Anyways, looks like they're trying to make a move in the TV industry with their BeoVision 8. The 40-inch LCD HDTV has a fair 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, "500 nits of brightness", 3,000:1 contrast ratio, 6ms response time, a digital TV tuner, and they even included their nifty audio into their also nifty internal speakers. There is no word on the price, but the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) is said to be "attractive" whatever that means. More details on the price when it's released.

[Engadget]

Dell Adamo Available Today

Labels: , , , , , ,

Dell has just confirmed that the 13-inch model of their new Adamo-branded laptop will be available sometime today. The Adamo is a whole new line of computers similar - but also extremely different - to the Inspiron lineup. The Adamo looks to put fashion and style back into Dell laptops and the first model will be available sometime today for $1,999.99 USD. This Apple Macbook Air competitor is supposed to be more affordable than the MacBook Air, so we could see a more affordable notebook in the future. By March 26 the aforementioned Adamo will be available in 24 countries, including the US. Nice move on Dell's part to place this launch right in time for the iPhone 3.0 OS event today. Details and spec sheet will be available later on today, so just keep in touch.

[Engadget]