Isaiah's Tech

Acer has just announced and released one of their new notebooks in their Acer Travelmate Timeline series. The new Travelmate Timeline series is basically modified versions of the 13.3-inch 3810T, 14-inch 4810T, and 15.6-inch 5810T Timeline models. This series has notebooks that have a magnesium alloy chassis, anti-shock software, and biometric security; they also have Acer Thermal Comfort technology, which is made to keep your lap cool by using Intel's new Laminar Wall Jet system.

The new notebooks have: your choice of either Core 2 Solo SU3500 / Core 2 Duo SU9400/SU9600 CPUs, Intel GMA 4500MHD / ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics, up to 8GB of RAM, WiFi Draft-N, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and optional 3G HSPA support. The 13.3-inch Acer Travelmate 8371 Timeline is now available in Europe for €619 ($880 USD). The other models will be available in September for €699 ($993 USD). You can check out a full spec sheet of the Travelmate series notebooks in a picture on the link below.

[Slash Gear]

Yesterday, Toshiba added an optional option to their Dynabook SS notebooks for WiMAX. It has been available since yesterday, so you can check it out now. The Dynabook UX netbook will also be getting the WiMAX option too, but it will come [a bit later] in mid-August. Apparently, this is the first netbook to use Intel's WiMAX/WiFi Link 5150 chipset, which has WiFi a/b/g/n and WiMAX connectivity.

[Slash Gear]

Mmm, sprinkly donuts. Android 2.0 aka Donut could be hitting Android devices by the end of the Summer, if earlier rumours stay true. What also makes this interesting is that Sony Ericsson's first Android device - quite possibly the XPERIA X3 - will be utilizing it. So what could be in store with Android 2.0 Donut? Take a look at the list below, courtesy of Phandroid.

• multitouch
• gestures
• cdma
• search integrated into everything
• wpa enterprise
• vpn support
• automated backups
• tons of performance tweaking

Multitouch! Yes, finally Android will have multitouch support, which is amazing. Performance tweaking definitely means that they're touching Android up to run a bit smoother and faster. I can't wait, this news pushes the XPERIA X3 to the top of my phone list, for sure.

[Phandroid]

If you're really interested in buying a gaming PC and you love Street Fighter IV, you should get this kind of sweet deal. If you buy a CyberPower PC with a Nvidia 200-series video card, you will get Street Fighter IV for free. The bad part about it is that you're probably going to spend at least $1,000 USD on any of their PCs. Head over to this site now! The deal ends soon.

[Crunch Gear]

The Samsung T659 Scarlet has just been leaked out. It was supposed to launch alongside the Gravity 2, but clearly, that didn't happen. Anyways, the Scarlet has: a 2MP camera, Bluetooth + EDR, quad-band GSM / dual-band WCDMA support, 3G, and a microSD card slot. We don't know when or how much this will launch for, but it should be available soon since it passed the FCC.

[Boy Genius]

Just to add fuel to the fire, Sprint's CEO has just confirmed that they will indeed be launching an Android phone this year. At this point, we don't know how many, but we've already heard rumours about the few possible Android phones that could hit Sprint in the future. There's the HTC Hero, a WiMAX-capable Samsung handset and, more recently, the Samsung InstinctQ M900. I think the HTC Hero will drop first, but it's all in Sprint's hands.

[Phandroid]

It's not as good as the Philips Xenium X830 handset, but Philips has just revealed the Xenium 650. It's a mid-end slider handset at best. It's got: a 2.4-inch display, a 3.2MP AF camera, an FM radio, Bluetooth, 30MB of internal memory, a microSD card slot, and a battery long enough to last a month of stand-by time and 8-hours of talk time. The price and availability hasn't been mentioned yet.

[Unwired View]

For a while now, Windows Mobile handsets have had to use the underpowered Qualcomm CPUs, which clocked at around 528MHz. Samsung and Intrinsity have just announced that they have developed the fastest ARM Cortex A8 CPU. This new CPU clocks in at 1GHz and also has low-power consumption, which is ideal for smartphones. This chip is codenamed "Hummingbird" and we'll hopefully see it in one of Samsung's smartphones in the near future.

[WMPowerUser]

With Windows 7 launching in Europe, it was said that the OS would not have any browsers built-into the OS, since Internet Explorer truly sucks. Well, now it looks like it will be the default browser, but it will transfer you to a "ballot screen" so that you can easily install a "competing browser" of choice. We don't know what the other browsers on the "ballot screen" will be at the time, but the picture above should be the top five on the list. They should do this in North America too.

[Gizmodo]

It should come as no surprise that the BlackBerry Curve 8520 will hit Vodafone. The Curve 83xx-series is extremely popular and the 85xx-series should be a bit better. We already know that it's hitting the US on August 5th via T-Mobile / Wal-Mart; Vodafone looks like it could also launch the Curve 8520 next month - possibly after it touches down in US though. We'll hear more about the pricing and details in the future.

[CrackBerry]

Back in late May, we heard about the HP iPAQ K3 Obsidian. Since then, we haven't heard much about it. The K3 Obsidian has: a 2.43-inch AMOLED QVGA display, a 3.2MP camera, 256MB of RAM, a Qualcomm 7200A 528MHz CPU, 512MB of ROM, WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth 2.0, a microSD card slot, GPS support, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Even though some of the specs have changed, this phone is still expected to hit AT&T in November and will hopefully be using Windows Mobile 6.5 - as seen above. For more pictures, check out the GSM Arena link below.

[GSM Arena, WMPowerUser]

RIM has just patented what you see above. It's basically a BlackBerry Pearl with a possibly rotating touchscreen display. Rotating displays may look good on paper, but doesn't really work out in real life. Cell Passion suggests an HTC Touch Pro 2-like design for a future BlackBerry. If RIM really wants to explore, I think they should definitely try it out!

[Cell Passion]

You can check out the full spec sheet of the Samsung I8000 Omnia II here, if you'd like. Apparently, this handset has just surpassed the FCC with the perfect bands to be released on Rogers and even AT&T. However, the updated news is that this handset that passed the FCC won't be headed to AT&T because of its model number, i8000L. Engadget Mobile suggests that this could mean a launch in Latin America. It will still hit US, since we already heard about Verizon possibly launching it. We'll just have to wait a little bit longer for more confirmation.

[Boy Genius, WMPowerUser, Engadget Mobile]

That's the current rumour on the streets. Verizon is pushing to get their 4G support out by early 2010; it's also expected to hit 20-30 markets by the end of the first half of 2010. What could this be for? Apparently, it could be for a future Apple device, namely the Apple tablet - or a future iPhone. On Tuesday, we heard that Verizon could be releasing an Apple tablet by the end of the year, but that could be pushed back to early next year. I'm sure Apple fans won't mind the short wait. The tablet will probably cost over $500 USD, even subsidized. This shouldn't be surprising, seeing how Apple has the tendency to overprice their devices - hence why they made huge profits in the last quarter.

I'm definitely excited to see how this fares out though.

[G4 TV]

Garmin-Asus has just announced that they will start selling their Nuvifone G60 in two days, July 27th, in Taiwan. Afterwards, it will hit Singapore and Malaysia next month, alongside the Nuvifone M20. The Nuvifone G60 will also hit the US sometime in the second half of this year; unfortunately, the Nuvifone M20 will not hit the US, but it will hit Europe in the second half of this year as well. The Nuvifone G60 has been delayed many, many times and I'd figure that some people out there have already lost interest.

It's been a while since I mentioned anything about either of these handsets, so I'll briefly go through the specs for you. The Nuvifone G60 has quad-band GSM / tri-band HSDPA support, a 3.55-inch resistive touchscreen display, a 3MP AF camera, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, and GPS. This handset runs on a customized Linux build and has 4 hours of talk-time.

The Nuvifone M20 is a smaller version of the G60. It has: a 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen display, a 3MP AF camera, dual-band HSDPA support, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, and GPS. Unlike the G60, this handset runs on WinMo 6.1.

The price for both of these handsets is still unknown, but it will be available in just two days.

[Slash Gear]

Samsung has just confirmed that it is working on a Nvidia Tegra based handset. This is truly amazing. Who wouldn't want 720p video, "hardware accelerated Flash", and longer battery life? It all sounds great to me, especially since it has Android support. Earlier rumours suggested that this Samsung handset could launch on AT&T or T-Mobile for around $199 on a 2-year contract. This handset could be running on either Android or Windows Mobile. It could also have Samsung's new AMOLED display - similar to the Samsung I8000 Omnia II - and could possibly be a full-touchscreen based handset. I'm definitely excited for this one.

[Engadget, Mobile Crunch, WMPowerUser]

Yes, what you see above is the HTC Touch Pro 2, just in case you didn't know. The picture is a bit deformed and Best Buy should probably fix that, but that's not the point. On Best Buy's website, the HTC Touch Pro 2 is going for $249.99 CAD ($231 USD) on a 3-year contract and also $649.99 CAD ($600 USD) contract-free. Anyways, you can check it out on Best Buy's website now!

We know that the HTC Touch Pro 2 is hitting T-Mobile on August 12th, but if you can't wait then you can head over to eBay and scoop up a T-Mobile branded HTC Touch Pro 2 for $1,049 USD or get one unlocked for $560 USD.

[Boy Genius, Mobile Syrup, WMPowerUser (eBay)]