Filed under: Cellphones

Sure, we’ve seen a lot of product announcements from Hop-on accompanied by janky product renders over the years — but we’ve never seen an actual Hop-on phone, so we’re a little skeptical of the company’s promise this morning to release an Android phone at CES this year. What’s more, it’s supposed to come in under $200, which is right in character for a manufacturer whose major claim to fame is the “disposable” cell phone, we suppose. We’ll see if such a phone actually appears at the show — Hop-on boldly says this mythical device will make it “competitive in the high-end phone market,” which is probably sending shock waves through the offices of HTC, Apple, and RIM as we speak.

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Filed under: Podcasts

Desirous of more of that enlightening Engadget banter? You’re in luck! We’ve got another installment of the newly-minted Engadget Podcast on tap, featuring an in-depth exploration of thoughts, feelings, and thoughts about feelings. This week Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel take you thorough a breathtaking range of topics, with a thorough dissection of the new MacBooks / MacBook Pros, a little Windows 7 talk, and an extra deep look at the T-Mobile G1 with the help of Engadget Mobile super-editor Chris Ziegler. Prepare for extreme geek-craft… now.

Note: We had some minor audio trouble with this one, so don’t be alarmed if you hear a little crosstalk — we’ll make sure things are as magically pristine as usual next week. Also, iTunes should be back properly soon, so stay tuned.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel
Guest: Chris Ziegler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Dr. Teeth — The Interview Is Over

00:00:42 - Apple’s “spotlight turns to notebooks” event roundup
00:38:43 - T-Mobile G1 review
01:10:59 - Motorola Krave ZN4 officially launches on Verizon for $149.99
01:18:10 - Windows 7 to be officially named… Windows 7
01:21:18 - Engadget: now the Official Blog Partner of CES

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Contact the podcast: 1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com.

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Filed under: Announcements, CES

We’ve always known that CES is the gadget industry’s single most important event — and the busiest week of our entire year — which is why when the CEA rings, we take the call. And while we tend not to bother with a lot of industry partnerships, we’ve accepted the rare distinction for Engadget to be named the first-ever Official Blog Partner of CES.

Of course, for you (and us) nothing much changes when it comes time to hit the floor at CES 2009: we don’t accept any hookups or editorial privileges from the CEA, and, as always, we’re out to live up to our own reputation for bringing you no-holds-barred, hard-hitting gadget news at breakneck speed on everything you need to know at CES. We’ll see you there in January!

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Filed under: CES

Are you ready to really let loose at this year’s CES? If you said yes, then you’ll be stoked as hell to know that our main man Steve Ballmer will be taking over Bill Gates’ famous keynotes. You read that right, the scariest fratbanger this side of your last toga party will be stepping up to the plate in what we can only hope will be the kind of explosive performance we’ve come to expect from him. Other keynoters will be the handsome Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer and Alan Mulally, president and CEO of Ford. Here’s hoping Gates at least drops by for a cameo — it just won’t seem like CES without him.

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Filed under: GPS, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We had the chance to get hands-on with Samsung’s WiBro-lovin’ SWT-W100k back at CES in January. Judging by the arrival of the product waifs, the 4.3-inch, WVGA touchscreen PMP now looks to be getting an official coming-out party in its native S.Korea. €341 takes the little all-purpose device with GPS, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, 8GB of internal flash, and DMB mobile television home on a yet to be determined date. VoIP client, personal organizer, and web browser? Sure, that too. No word on the processor choice but it’s definitely not running any flavor of Microsoft OS. With any luck, Samsung will bring a US-speced variant capable of running on Sprint’s XOHM service later this year. Video refresher posted after the break.

Continue reading Samsung’s SWT-W100K WiBro PMP gets official, priced

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Filed under: CES, Features, Gaming

Smells like cheap knockoff spirit.

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Filed under: CES, Features

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/CES_2008_product_names_Best_of_the_worst’;Perhaps they lacked a crackshot marketing team, the URL they wanted was camped by someone unreasonable, or — sadly — they just thought it was a good idea at the time. For whatever reason, these products and companies actually made it to fruition for our sheer enjoyment.

More Best of the Worst

• CES 2008 Adwatch: Best of the worst
• CES 2008 booth gimmickery: Best of the worst
• CES 2008 Crapgadget

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Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Features, Handhelds

No matter where we go, RIM seems to have this same booth style where all the good stuff (the phones, that is) are centralized in a nucleus around the center, causing massive crowding. Don’t get us wrong, it’s entirely possible that’s the effect RIM is shooting for, but heaven help us poor journalists try to get a shot of the goods contained within. The Canadian manufacturer didn’t have any earth-shattering announcements for the show — just a couple of new 8130 colors — so the highlight has to be the giant Pearl that was harassing passers-by. Click on!

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Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Handhelds

We seriously have no idea what Qualcomm was thinking here, but it turns out that those two so-called “Snapdragon prototypes” being shown at CES this year… wait for it… don’t use the Snapdragon platform. Now, that would’ve been just fine with us had Qualcomm made it clear that they were built using its existing chipsets, but they didn’t. Here’s the best part: Qualcomm actually contacted us with a minor correction on our original story (they wanted us to point out that their ARM-based cores are highly customized) without bothering to mention that our “Snapdragon-powered” statement was not accurate. Anyway, it turns out that the Anchorage and Fairbanks prototypes are merely meant to demonstrate “examples of what Snapdragon-enabled devices will feature,” which begs the question: if the current MSM series chipsets are capable of the same functionality, aren’t those probably the wrong features to be demonstrating? That behavior walks a fine line between poorly executed PR and outright deception, Qualcomm, and we’d ask that you not let it happen again.

[Thanks, Sascha]

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Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Features

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Filed under: CES, Features

In terms of layout, UTStarcom’s booth is close to a dead ringer for its showing at last year’s CES; just the promos and handsets have changed, basically. The darlings of the show have to be the HSM180, an absolutely bizarre HSDPA candybar featuring two circles for a keypad, and the TXT8010, a QWERTY slider with an attitude for CDMA networks. Check ‘em out, yo.

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Filed under: CES, Features

In terms of layout, UTStarcom’s booth is close to a dead ringer for its showing at last year’s CES; just the promos and handsets have changed, basically. The darlings of the show have to be the HSM180, an absolutely bizarre HSDPA candybar featuring two circles for a keypad, and the TXT8010, a QWERTY slider with an attitude for CDMA networks. Check ‘em out, yo.

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Filed under: CES, Features

In terms of layout, UTStarcom’s booth is close to a dead ringer for its showing at last year’s CES; just the promos and handsets have changed, basically. The darlings of the show have to be the HSM180, an absolutely bizarre HSDPA candybar featuring two circles for a keypad, and the TXT8010, a QWERTY slider with an attitude for CDMA networks. Check ‘em out, yo.

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Filed under: CES, Features, Tablet PCs

THTF (which stands for Tsinghua Tongfang, if you must know) is at CES showing its LimePC series of simple, lightweight computers, and we took a particular interest in three of ‘em, ordered by size from largest to smallest: the UMPC, HandheldPC, and PalmPC (pictured) models. All three pack an uber-low power mobileGT core from Freescale, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, and touchscreen displays; the Palm PC and HandheldPC feature either 8 or 16GB of Flash, while the UMPC upgrades to a hard drive between 30 and 100GB in capacity. Though both the hardware and the Linux-based software were extremely raw here, we see promise in these totally hackable little beasts — particularly in the smaller of the two, both of which are totally pocketable. Check out the gallery to see all three doing their thing.

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Filed under: CES, Displays, HDTV

Samsung can join Hitachi while crying into their sake as its 52-inch “thinnest non-OLED HDTV ever” is around 4x as thick as Pioneer’s 9mm heroin-chic Kuro. Take heart Sammy, because your 82-inch — and btw, what is with the 82-inch obsession (2005 & 2006 CES), we need to talk about that — Quad HD display is like looking out of a window, if we had bigger and cleaner windows. Check out the gallery to see what we mean.

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Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Features, Handhelds

We sat down with one of Qualcomm’s fancy new reference designs today, the Anchorage QWERTY slider phone. Let’s be perfectly clear — the Inventec-crafted device won’t ever see the light of day in this exact form, Qualcomm just needed some eye candy with which to demonstrate its new Snapdragon platform. The chipset features a highly specialized and customized ARM-based core and graphics from ATI — both actually licensed this time around, we’re told — and tries to take advantage of as many technologies that Snapdragon offers as possible: MediaFLO support, blazing clock speeds (1GHz to be exact), high resolutions (SVGA here), and the list goes on. Snapdragon-powered devices should hit retail from HTC and Samsung by the end of the year. Click on for pics, just don’t get too attached since this is as close as you’ll ever get to it, alright?

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Filed under: Cellphones, GPS

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Filed under: CES, Features

Although the outer dimensions remain unchanged, Nokia’s CES booth is considerably larger in usable square footage this year compared to last because some of its private meeting space has been jettisoned to a location elsewhere in the convention. They’ve used the extra space well, too; in addition to several areas where passers-by can handle the latest phones, there’s a long, wrapping counter for demoing what Nokia calls its “experiences” — things like the Music Store, for example. Check out all the pretty colors in the gallery!

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Filed under: CES, Misc. Gadgets

Belkin must need to score some points with Al Gore, because they announced an energy-reducing power strip that you can… turn off. The aptly-named Conserve has eight power outlets, six of which can be toggled on or off using a wireless remote. While the strip will shut down stores worldwide in the summer and fall for $49.99, you should know you can get the same effect right now just by flipping the “off” switch on your existing power strip.

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Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Handhelds, HDTV

A few companies have demoed cellphone chips capable of of HD output, but the fact is HDTV inputs weren’t designed with mobile power requirements and form factors in mind. Apparently unsatisfied by the mini HDMI connector created as part of HDMI 1.3, Silicon Image went ahead with its own design, reducing HDMI’s 19 pins to 5 while still retaining compatibility for full HD and digital audio in a package it calls Mobile High Definition Link (MHL). Cutting out any serial connector or further compression, the first MHL equipped products are the VastLane SiI9220, SiI9222 and SiI9290, which could reach cellphones near you as soon as the third quarter of this year.

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