Archive for December 8th, 2009
December 8, 2009
“Acer’s first Android smartphone – and indeed the first Android handset to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor – has begun shipping in the UK. The Acer Liquid A1 is currently in stock at retailers Expansys and Clove, priced at £339.99 ($556) and £328.99 ($538) respectively.Your money gets you a 3.5-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen, quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and triband (900/1900/2100) HSDPA, along with WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and a 5-megapixel camera. While the processor is capable of 1GHz speeds, Acer have taken the decision to underclock it to 768MHz, likely in response to the capabilities of the 1,350mAh battery.At 12.5mm thick the Acer Liquid A1 isn’t exactly the most svelte Android handset around, and we’re not convinced by the black & white color scheme, but early previews have been reasonably impressed by its performance. Unlike HTC and Motorola, Acer haven’t done a huge amount of customization to the UI, so you’ll be living with a pretty standard install of Android 1.6 Donut.” via slashgear.com
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December 8, 2009
“Over the weekend, I found myself going old-school and browsing through the local newspaper, deciding to check out the underwhelming Christmas sales for the upcoming week. Since I don’t get a paper delivery and read everything online now, this was a unique experience, to say the least.As the Sunday paper seems to have more ads than news, I immediately tackled those and came across an interesting item at RadioShack, something I had not seen anywhere else. Online or brick-and-mortar, the Archos 5 Android 8GB had been MIA since its inclusion in the grand Archos unveiling months ago. Well, it is alive and well and hanging out at “The Shack.”It’s apparently an exclusive for the moment at a price of $249.99, which is actually not a bad deal for those of you looking to use the new Archos more as a web browsing tablet (it’s quite fast, remember?) instead of a multimedia powerhouse. Of course, it has a microSDHC slot, so the storage can be expanded up to 24GB, limited only by the current capacity of the tiny flash cards. And the functionality is identical to the other models, just with less internal memory.I went by a local store and they had one on display next to the GPS units (?), and they were available in stock for purchase, right along with the ever-popular AA batteries, remote control cars, and do-it-yourself radio kits. Those of you in the US who have grown up with RadioShack will know exactly what I’m talking about.While already hard to resist at that sub-$250 price, I would still like to see Archos lower their prices about $50 across the board, only to better compete with the iPod touch juggernaut, which starts at just under $200 for the same 8GB capacity.” via pocketables.net
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December 8, 2009
Upon opening the box to the Samsung OmniaPRO B7330 we are presented with a phone of extremely slick industrial design. The B7330 packs a surprisingly large 2.6†320×320 display into its tiny frame and this sits above a nicely curved full QWERTY keyboard which is reminiscent of a shrunken down BlackBerry Bold layout. Pleasantly, the handset measures a thickness of under 11mm, a svelte full portrait QWERTY device festooned in glossy black plastic. The device is compact and, despite the inevitable fingerprint marks, attractive.The Samsung OmniaPRO B7330 has a d-pad for navigation, this being the non-touch variant of the Windows Mobile OS. Around it you’ll find the send and end keys, home and back, and two soft keys for context sensitive functions. The keys are nicely bevelled and matt plastic like the keyboard and are easy to locate and press. The only criticism we would have here, is that we continually pressed the start call button instead of the left soft key due to it’s positioning under the screen. The keyboard is a nicely tactile and well laid out QWERTY pad with two function keys for number entry. The keys are not spaced out as such, but are raised in such a way as to make typing fairly enjoyable; we say fairly, as if, like us you have larger thumbs then you may find that only finger nail typing will suffice, which slows down overall speed and accuracy. The phone has a volume rocker and USB charge/data port on the left and a microSD slot and camera shortcut key on the right.” Read more here:
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