Archive for November 16th, 2009

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! We know that between the traffic jams, mall moms on a mission, kids who’d rather be elsewhere, and the sheer crush of holiday cheer, it can be hard to find a little time to get your head straight and find the gifts that really count. The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Every time the holidays roll around, we put together this list to make shopping for the tech lovers in your life a little simpler — it’s our way of helping out in these hectic months.

This year, we’re taking a new approach to the guide; in the past we’ve always done the selections by person (him, her, etc.), but we think there’s a better way. Starting this year, we’re breaking down the guide by product category (smartphones, laptops, TVs and the like), and grouping those picks into price ranges — so you can find something easily, no matter how much you have to spend. The HGG is a series of smaller guides, but the picks will be collected in a landing page which can be helpfully sorted by price and category (which will be up soon). We’ll publish a new guide every few days through Christmas (things are kicking off today with e-book readers), so you’ll have plenty of time to shop around online and in stores, and we do suggest you check out all the guides — especially since you never know when you’ll find something you want for yourself.

Enjoy, and happy holidays!

Filed under: Announcements

Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide, 2009! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the 6.5 fat cats like the Imagio and Pure have had their fun for a few weeks, it’s high time that the love start to trickle down to older upgrade-less devices, and as promised, Microsoft’s now obliging with a Windows Marketplace download that’ll work on phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1. As far as we can tell, there aren’t any material differences in this version, and Microsoft is quick to remind everyone that you don’t need the download if you’re running 6.5 — so while you patiently wait for an upgrade, owners, you may as well get a taste for the good stuff now.

[Thanks, Chris]

Filed under: Cellphones

Windows Marketplace trickles down to WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re like us, you’ve been marking the days off until you could get WowWee’s Cinemin Swivel — or, the pico with attitude, as we like to call it. We’ve been keeping our eyes on it since CES 2009, so we can sympathize. Well, looks like the wait is over — it’s popped up on Amazon and we hear you can grab one up at Brookstone, too. The DLP pico, which boasts a 480 x 360 resolution, an adjustable 90-degree hinge (for projecting your Richard Marx video collection onto the ceiling) will run you around $299.

Filed under: Displays

WowWee Cinemin Swivel pico projector shocker: available now! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Acer Aspire Timeline 1820PT convertible hits Australia, gets specs

Filed under: Laptops

Acer Aspire Timeline 1820PT convertible hits Australia, gets specs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Active Media Products isn’t one to shy away from mildly ludicrous USB flash drive designs, but it may want to snag a lawyer on retainer for this one. Granted, there’s at least a sliver of a chance that Sarah Palin was actually notified that her image would be used to market AMP’s new “Wink” USB flash drive, but chances are she’s being rudely introduced to the sobering truth just as we are. Hailed as the planet’s smallest 16GB thumb drive, this waterproof slab of memory is also available in a few smaller sizes for those unconcerned with gaining political clout. It measures in at just 1.2- x 0.5- x 0.1-inches, or just marginally smaller than Little Diomede island (which you actually can see Russia from, amazingly enough). It’s available now to inspire and encourage starting at $7.95 (2GB), though that 16 gigger we mentioned earlier will set you back $37.95.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

Filed under: Storage

‘Wink’ USB flash drive: perfect for hockey moms, lipstick-laden pigs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve finally had a chance to play around at length with a very late pre-production version of Nokia’s N900 (retail units are already shipping, but not to our neck of the woods just yet) and we wanted to scribble out a few notes for you before taking delivery of a final build for a full review hopefully in the next week or two. Here are some highlights we’ve noticed so far:

• Processor, processor, processor. Oh, and did we mention the processor? The N900′s Cortex A8-based core yields significant improvements in day-to-day usability over the N810′s ARM11 unit.
• Though it’s still quite raw and feature-incomplete, Maemo 5 is by far the most user-friendly version of the platform to date, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s very pretty. Screen transitions are smooth and look great, the home screen is as attractive and versatile as any widget-based home screen on the market today, and the Expose-style task switcher is a welcome addition.
• The N900 may very well offer the best browsing experience of any smartphone on the market today (yes, including the iPhone). What little ground it gives up in user friendliness is more than countered by the fact that you have the closest thing you can get to a desktop-class browser in a device of this size and form factor; it’s straight-up Mozilla, after all, and everything renders faithfully. Flash doesn’t blaze, but at least the Cortex A8 makes it usable.

Follow the break for more impressions and a quick rundown on video!

Continue reading Nokia N900 quick hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nokia N900 quick hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• A helium balloon lifted the chair and Toshiba’s own IK-HR1S ultra-compact 1080i camera to a height of 98,268 feet above terra firma
• FAA regulations required that the weight of the rig had to be less than four pounds
• The chair is made of biodegradable balsa wood at a cost of of about £2,500
• The rig was launched in Nevada’s Burning Man Black Rock desert
• The temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees at 52,037 feet
• The chair took 83 minutes to reach an altitude of 98,268 feet and just 24 minutes to fall back to earth

Truly amazing stuff. Now buckle up and click through for the show.

Continue reading Toshiba ‘Space Chair’ ad redefines armchair viewing (video)

Filed under: Displays, Laptops

Toshiba ‘Space Chair’ ad redefines armchair viewing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS has already gone public with its plans to jump past Dell to become the number three PC vendor by 2011. Naturally, with fierce competition from all sides, the Taiwanese PC maker isn’t going to achieve this by simply slapping the Eee logo onto everything it can build; acquisitions are the key to that kind of rapid growth. So it’s no surprise to hear Jonney Shih, ASUS chairman, listing Toshiba’s PC business amongst its possible targets for acquisition according to the Commercial Times. After all, Toshiba’s estimated 5% global marketshare is enough to bring ASUS within wrastlin’ distance of Round Rock, Tejas. According to Shih, talks have already begun but the results are not yet finalized. Shocker.

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS courting Toshiba in bid to become top-3 PC maker? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cray has finally clawed IBM back from the lead position on the Top500 Supercomputer chip-measuring contest. After just missing out on the title to IBM’s Roadrunner last year, Cray’s XT5 supercomputer (aka, Jaguar) at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee received an update from quad- to six-core Opteron processors to boast a 2.3 petaflop per second performance peak (theoretical) and 1.75 petaflops as measure by the Linpack benchmark; a feat requiring almost a quarter million AMD cores. IBM’s Roadrunner, the very first supercomputer to race past the petaflop threshold, managed just 1.042 petaflops by comparison. Remember, one petaflop per second is equivalent to one quadrillion calculations per second. Video of the processor upgrade procedure can be found after the break.

Continue reading Cray Jaguar leaps past IBM Roadrunner as world’s faster supercomputer and pun generator (video)

Cray Jaguar leaps past IBM Roadrunner as world’s faster supercomputer and pun generator (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just in time for the Pixi’s grand debut, webOS devices (that’s just Pixi and Pre) now have their first official Facebook app, joining the ranks of iPhone and Android… and we’re sad to report that it’s about as barebones as they can get. It pulls from the raw live stream, seemingly unfiltered — even if you said “no” to Farmville updates on your main feed, they’ll show up here. Clicking a YouTube link brings you to the YouTube app, clicking links go to browser. You can update your status or upload a photo, but that’s about it. You can’t seem to search Facebook for any info, view events, or anything else, and clicking on someone’s name or photo brings up their contact info. And that’s about it — can someone give Joe Hewitt a ring? Still, it’s better than nothing. WebOS 1.3.1 is required, not that you had any reason to hold off upgrading.

Filed under: Cellphones

Facebook finally comes to webOS, not with a bang but a whimper originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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