Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

By now you’ve probably watched the Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft ad a dozen or so times (if not, get to it). If you’re like us, you’ve got a healthy conversation happening about what the new campaign means, and whether or not you actually like the thing. According to a leaked internal email from Redmond’s senior vice president Bill Veghte, this first installment in what will be a series of commercials is meant to function as an “Icebreaker to reintroduce Microsoft to viewers in a consumer context.” It seems that the company is following the path they’ve stamped out with their previous media burst, the Mojave Experiment, which appears to be less concerned with changing the product (Windows), and more concerned with changing consumers’ perception of the product. In Veghte’s words, “Telling our story means making significant investments to improve the way consumers experience Windows.” So here’s our question to you: is Microsoft on the right track here? Let us know in the poll below! (You can also read the full text of the email after the break)

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Continue reading Poll: Is Microsoft’s new ad working?

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Filed under: Cellphones

We’ve been getting scattered reports that Apple’s shiny new toy might not be snagging as many bars as it should for a lot of users. In our own tests, we’ve noticed the iPhone 3G fairing poorly in spots where other 3G devices exhibit strong signals, and the Apple support forums are alive with displeasure over what might be a widespread issue. We’re curious to know what you — the reader — are experiencing. How’s your mileage with the new phone? Let us know in the poll below.

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Filed under: Cellphones

We hear Apple popped out a new phone or something today. All hearsay, but we though we’d run it by you. The $199 pricepoint for the 8GB, Exchange support, A-GPS and 3G data all make an extremely compelling case, but Apple still has plenty to improve on — there’s still no physical keyboard, if you hadn’t noticed (a dealbreaker for some), and Apple has yet to confirm things as common-sensical as copy and paste, video recording and MMS. There’s also another little problem for a few folks out there: the resale price on your iPhone is now approximately nil, so good luck offloading that sucker. But enough about what we think, what’s on your mind?

Poll after the break.

Continue reading So, are you gonna get an iPhone 3G?

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Filed under: Meta

As of a couple redesigns ago, Engadget’s content column has been variable width, meaning the wider your browser, the wider the content. Readers with big widescreen monitors can feel the full effect, but we’re also cognizant of the reading issues go along with having too much width, so we’ve been toying with the idea of going back to a fixed-width layout for the site. What do you think, how wide is wide enough for reading Engadget?

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

You might recall The Onion breaking the news back in October that the Apple backlash was set to begin as of today, and if The Onion says it, it’s got to be true. Right? Sure, the Cupertino fruit company’s been riding high as of late, but if America’s Finest News Source has it, we’ll all be looking at our iDevices like bellbottoms and Betamaxes soon enough.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Apple unloaded a truckload or two of new reasons to call yourself an iPhone owner today, but we’re curious if those announcements were enough to make any fencesitters sashay on down to their local Apple / AT&T store and take the plunge. So, did the news flowing today from Apple’s SDK press conference push you over the edge? Toss your vote in below, and if you’re still holding off — well, tell us what’s keepin’ ya (yes, the continued lack of 3G is a legitimate gripe).

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Filed under: Features, Laptops

We all knew this day was coming. Apple’s previous MacBook Pro revision was certainly getting long in the tooth, a MacBook spec bump never hurt anything, and hey, Penryn isn’t getting any younger. Still, it’s pretty obvious that quite a few of the Apple faithful feel like the MacBook Pro and its cute little MacBook sidekick are in some serious need of a form factor refresh, and perhaps a little bit of SSD. We can understand Apple not wanting to steal the MacBook Air’s thunder, and to be fair most major manufacturers put the new Penryn chips inside existing form factors, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you to be upset. So, how do you really feel?

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

According to a recent NPD Group study, apparently seven out of ten HDTV owners don’t see the need to go Blu-ray or HD DVD, because, well, DVD suits their needs well enough. We’ve yet to dig up the original report, but the point still begs the question — and be honest with yourself now, this is an anonymous poll, after all — are you still happy enough with the humble DVD?

[Thanks, Sean]

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Filed under: Cellphones

With the bleak news out of Sprint’s camp this morning, employees, stockholders, analysts, and subscribers all have to be wondering pretty much the same thing: what’s going wrong? Xohm’s just around the corner, so these guys have a pretty good lead on the competition in the race to 4G — but is there something far more systematic about Sprint’s core business that’s causing paying heads to leave in droves?

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

So while the iPhone and Apple TV got shiny new firmware updates and new features for free today, iPod touch owners will have to lay out $20 to get Mail, Weather, Stocks, Notes, and Maps — five apps the iPhone’s had since day one. That seems like a raw deal to us — but then again, we’re up to our necks in handheld devices that can check email and take notes. So what’s it going to be, iPod touch owners — will you be laying down a Jackson or what?

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Filed under: Laptops

Curious minds need to know — despite the built-in RAM, the fixed battery, single (and soon to be overworked) USB port, lack of integrated 3G and the lofty $1,799 starting price point, did you still pull the trigger on a MacBook Air pre-order? We know, it is ridiculously thin, and it is ultra-light, so we’re wondering just how many of you ponied up the premium for all that sexiness. Drop your answer in the poll below, and feel free to add a couple pennies (or more, we won’t mind) in comments.

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Yep, we know there are a ton of you who want us to liveblog our keynotes in reverse chronological order (i.e. latest updates at the top, earliest updates at the bottom), and not how we normally do it, where you read from top to bottom like everything else. So we’re putting it to the vote — do you want our updates in order, top to bottom, as usual? Or would you prefer them close to the top of the keynote page? (We’ll probably go back later and reorder everything for the latecomers, if so.) Let us know, we aim to please.

Oh, and don’t forget, Steve’s Macworld 2008 keynote goes down here.

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Filed under: CES, Features, Misc. Gadgets

Primaries schmimaries. Your vote is so obviously well spent here: we’re asking you to make your selection for best (and by best, we mean worst) Crapgadget of CES. Simply browse through the crap we’ve assembled below and add your pick to the tally. Hopefully next year you’ll be able to call in your vote via Mini Phone while sitting on your Tole Pure.

The nominees
Round 1: the Mini Phone
Round 2: the MP5 player
Round 3: Boxing Champ
Round 4: Fugliest display evar
Round 5: tweety! digital camera
Round 6: The Apple Pie
Round 7: 64MB Beer MP3 player
Round 8: Firetruck with 1.5-inch digital photo frame
Round 9: spy recorder for little girls
Round 10: PC Desktop Duo
Round 11: Janky-ass MP4 watch
Round 12: iPod docking pink plastic purse
Round 13: e-paper display actually paper
Round 14: Hello Kitty with human debris
Round 15: Shredmaster Jr.
Round 16: Music Player Sunglasses
Round 17: the non-existent digital photo frame
Round 18 finale: Tole Pure really is a crapgadget

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Filed under: Gaming

Of all the weeks to have a major outage of your online gaming service, the holiday and vacation weeks of Christmas and New Years may have to be the worst — which Microsoft has learned all to well over the last ten days. We know you’ve heard plenty about it here at Engadget — but that’s really only because Xbox Live has had such a solid track record over the years, and we’re all just as surprised as you. But while it’s perfectly clear users have been seeing these issues, it’s still unclear exactly how “intermittent” those issues really are. Care to let us know how you’ve fared in our wholly unscientific poll?

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Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals

We’ve heard scattered reports of MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboard problems dating back for centuries, and while it sounds on the surface to be a fairly inconsequential problem in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem to be going away. So to figure out if this is just a few squeaky wheels, or indeed worthy of a torches and pitchfork party over in Curpentino, we’d like to imploy our super-scientific polling process and put it to a vote. For the uninitiated, the problem manifests itself in many ways, and was present before Leopard but showed up in more machines after the Leopard upgrade. Symptoms can include randomly skipped letters (specifically the first letter), fully frozen keyboards, funky capslock or numlock, and mild indegestion.

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[Thanks to all the squeaky wheels who sent this in]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

As former tech retail geeks in another life, we know better than anyone the kind of pressure salespeople at the big box retailers put on adding extended (often 3rd party) warranties on gadget purchases. Oh sure, it preys on uninformed customers’ fears that their expensive new toys will break down a exactly 91 days after purchase and they’ll be left in the lurch — but sometimes those warranties can actually come in handy. That is, if you can convince the warranty people to pony up, which is just a step below the frustration of dealing with most HMOs. So, what’s your take on extended warranties?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Check it out: Leopard’s been brewing in “public” beta (read: BitTorrent) for a fair amount of time and we’d be willing to bet that the majority of interested Engadget readers have already been either voraciously consuming every bit of available news about the new OS or straight up running the damn thing. Plus Apple’s done the legwork for all the tech enthusiasts by posting walkthroughs and lengthy feature lists (not that our beleaguered-blogger selves are complaining about not having to handle it). When Vista launched we blew out the usual wall-to-wall coverage with hardware, software, and x-factor upgrade guides, live launch event coverage (not that Apple is having any big Leopard event), galleries, etc. — but bear in mind, not only was Vista seven years in the making (compared to Leopard’s 30 month release window), it was also fundamentally different from XP in ways that Leopard isn’t different from Tiger. So we’ll leave it up to you. What, exactly, does the Leopard-loving half of you reading Engadget want to see from us in terms of coverage of the new OS?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

We know it’s still four months away, but today’s bombshell announcement of a forthcoming iPhone / iPod touch SDK has got us asking a lot of questions, and we’re turning to you for the answers. Sound off!

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

2007 is definitely shaping up to be the year of the desktop OS: between Vista’s much ballyhooed and better-late-than-never launch (and subsequently pending SP1 release), Apple’s behind-schedule but super hyped release of Mac OS X Leopard, and unlikely upstart and fan fave Ubuntu’s forthcoming Gutsy Gibbon launch. So, what’s it gonna be?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!