Samsung Q1EX, Blackberry 9630 Niagara, Firefox 3.1 Beta, HTC Black Magic, Dell Latitude XT2

This Samsung Q1EX UMPC was first introduced in CES, earlier this year. The Q1EX went full touchscreen with this device and it's going to run on Windows XP Tablet Edition. The 7-inch 1,024 x 600 screen is accompanied with some superb hardware inside it, including a 1.2GHz VIA Nano ULV U2500 processor, 2GB of DDR2 memory, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, SD card clot, a 60GB of HDD space and a 4-cell battery that Samsung says will last up to 4.5-hours. Unfortunately, i think it seems a bit pricey at $775 USD according to some online retailers. There is no word on its availability right now, "but it can't be long now can it?" This looks pretty good but i would have much preferred a slide-out QWERTY keyboard somewhere.

Some new pictures of the Blackberry 9630 Niagara have been leaked. The Niagara actually looks skinnier than the Bold if you blow up the left picture. This Blackberry is said to be a World Edition and will have GPS and a 3.2MP camera with a bunch of other features. But, it looks like WiFi has been dropped from the product, "quite possibly at the request of Verizon." You can blame them (for now) for not slapping on the WiFi, but it still looks quite sexy.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 is nearing its release and people are saying that it could possibly be in a "neck-and-neck" battle with Safari 4's speed. Although i still believe that Chrome's dev build (2.0) is still the fastest, the tests were done strictly between Firefox 3.1 vs Safari 4. Personally, i like Safari 4, but i think all they need to change is the tab management to make it more like Chrome's (since they took everything from Chrome anyway). One more thing actually, they also need to change the ugly gray colour of the bars at the top of page. I don't want to be reminded of a Mac while using it on Windows. Gray just seems so boring and dull. The Firefox 3.1 Beta is expected to be released on March 10.

Warning: this is not a new phone. It's just the HTC Magic in black, codenamed Sapphire. In the article, it mentioned that HTC "believed deeply" in Android. If this is so true why don't they release more Android phones instead of running WinMo 6.1 or 6.5? Come on HTC, if you really believe in Android, prove your love. Anyways, there's no word on the pricing or the availability of the black HTC Magic, but i'll be sure to deliver the news when i find it. On a side note, let's backtrack to the white version. It will be released through Vodafone this April. The HTC Magic is a slight "improvement" from the T-Mobile G1. The Magic is thinner, about 40 grams lighter, has 2 hours more talk time, a bigger ROM and also has an extra HSDPA band (900 and a 2100). I put improvement in quotes because it does have one disadvantage off the top of my head, and that being the lack of a physical QWERTY keyboard. Anyways, it will probably be hitting the US market as the T-Mobile G2.

The Dell Latitude is almost here and it is starting at a steep price of $2,399 USD. I've talked about it before , but now the real specs come into play. For the base price, you get a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo SU9300 processor, 1GB DDR3 of RAM, an 80GB HDD, Intel's GMA 4500MHD graphics card and a 4-cell battery. If you're willing to upgrade (and pay $3,783 USD) you can upgrade the system to a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor, 3GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, Bluetooth with the awesome 10-hour XT2 Slice battery. Keep in mind that this is a tablet laptop, so it has a 12.1-inch LED-backlit, capacitive touchscreen. It is scheduled for an April 9 shipping date; it's almost here.

Samsung Q1EX (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/05/samsungs-nano-powered-q1ex-umpc-loses-its-qwerty-at-the-fcc/
Blackberry 9630 Niagara (and picture): http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/03/05/photos-of-the-blackberry-9630-niagara-emerge/
Firefox 3.1 Beta: http://www.betanews.com/article/Firefox-31-could-catch-up-to-Safari-4-in-beta-speed-duel/1236203202
HTC Black Magic (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/05/htc-black-magic-sapphire-hands-on-a-vodafone-exclusive/
HTC Magic Coming To Vodafone: http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_magic_coming_to_vodafone_as_soon_as_this_april-news-820.php
Dell Latitude XT2 (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/05/dell-latitude-xt2-multi-touch-tablet-now-shipping-april-9th/