An unsubstantiated rumor out of XDA-Developers suggests that HTC is continuing its Touch Pro series of handsets with the third iteration expected to arrive this summer. According to the forum post, the rumored Touch Pro3 will be smaller and thinner than the current Touch Pro2 and will launch in Europe in Q2. With Windows Phone 7 Series smartphones expected to debut during this holiday season, the Touch Pro3, if it indeed launches, may be one of the last Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets to hit the market. Anyone interested?

[Via wmpoweruser]

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It's not much more than a hard drive with HD media playback abilities, but the Packard Bell Studio ST certainly looks nice, doesn't it? It's Europe-only for now, but we're hoping parent company Acer brings over a US-branded version of this box, which holds up to a 2TB hard drive and can do 1080p out over HDMI with Dolby Digital. Codec support is described as "all main formats," which is a little shady, but we'll be forgiving if it's cheaper than the Western Digital WD TV Live HD.

[Thanks, Matt]

Packard Bell Studio ST media playback drive invades Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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High tech couch potatoes take note as Logitech has added two new Harmony remotes to its already robust remote lineup. The latest additions offer one click activity buttons and have enough functionality to replace five individual remotes. The Harmony 600 is an entry level model and features a black & white screen with support for device commands. The Harmony 650 offers a color screen, has icons for your favorite channels, and supports device commands. You might be familiar with Logitech’s lineup, but here is the kicker: The Logitech Harmony 600 will retail for a mere $79.99 while the Harmony 650 comes in at a slightly higher, but still affordable $99.99. Both remotes are expected to touch down in the US and Europe in late March.

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Today, at CeBIT, Nokia unveiled the first handset in its newly-named line of phones, the C-Series: the Nokia C5. The C5 pairs the classic Nokia candy bar form-factor with S60 3rd edition and a very modest price point — €135 ($182) unsubsidized. The phone will feature a 2.2″ display, 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm A/V connector, FM radio, 12 hours of talk time, GPS, Ovi Maps, Nokia Messaging, and microSD card slot (with support for up to a 16GB card). The C5 will be available in the second half of 2010 in Europe, Eurasia, and China. Not for everyone, but hey, for $182 it’s way better than a feature phone, in our modest opinion.

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We've had only tantalizingly brief (or is it briefly tantalizing?) chances to see LG's glorious OLED television, but each and every time it's left us with the feeling that our lives are poorer for not having one in our homes. Sure, that says as much about our tech addiction as it does about the 3mm-thick displays, but at least the deep-pocketed among us won't have to wait too much longer to sate the need for 10,000,000:1 contrast ratios and 0.001ms response times. LG has announced it'll be bringing it's 15-inch OLED panel to Europe this May (to be swiftly followed by summer availability in the US) with a hefty MSRP sticker of €1,999 ($2,725) for the Austrian market. Nobody ever said the cutting edge was gonna be a cheap place to live.

LG's 15-inch 15EL9500 OLED TV sets sail for Europe, scheduled to arrive this May originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WiMAX is slowly and steadily expanding in the U.S. through the efforts of Clearwire, the primary provider of WiMAX stateside. Globally, WiMAX is on a different track, exhibiting explosive growth with Asia Pacific and Europe leading the pack. The numbers, compiled by the WiMAX Forum, are revealing:

• Asia Pacific: 237 million people covered by 100 network deployments
• Europe: 115 million people covered by 153 network deployments
• Central/Latin America: 113 million people covered 109 network deployments
• Africa/Middle East: 108 million people covered by 142 network deployments
• North America: 47 million people covered by 51 network deployments

Though Clearwire is currently behind the curve globally, it has set a lofty goal of blanketing 120 million people by the end of  2010. If achieved, Clearwire will be sitting pretty on top of a large potential user base while its competition, namely Verizon Wireless, is only beginning to roll out LTE commercially on a small scale. Look for things to get interesting in 2011 and beyond when the two 4G technologies begin competing head to head on a more level basis.

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Hey there, Mini GD880 -- we've seen plenty of you around here lately -- but we were beginning to wonder if you'd ever get totally, completely, 100 percent official. Well, here we are, day two of MWC, and it was definitely worth the wait. LG's latest featurephone packs a 5 megapixel cam, WiFi, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, and integrated FM radio into a frame that's just 10.6mm in depth and weighs just 99 grams -- about as thin and light as it gets. It also boasts continual over-the-air syncing via LG's new Air Sync service, making it a pretty smart phone -- for a featurephone. The Mini GD880 will be available throughout Europe beginning in March, for an as yet undetermined amount of cash money. The full press release is after the break, but if your heart is filled with desire for this beast, you can hit up the hands-on and impressions in the more coverage link for more photos.

Continue reading LG Mini GD880 finally gets a full on announcement at MWC

LG Mini GD880 finally gets a full on announcement at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hear that, globetrotters? Just months after your hopes and dreams were obliterated, we're now hearing that the Zune HD and its associated music / video services are going international, and it could happen by the end of the year. At least that's the word given to Mary Jo Foley from Casey McGee, Microsoft Senior Marketing Manager. In a recent sit-down, Casey noted that the company's Zune music / video service "would be available in all countries where Windows 7 Phones will ship," and while it has yet to make that full list of nations publicly available, we already learned that the new mobile OS has gained support from mobile operators all over Europe. Putting two and two together can be difficult at times, but hopefully we aren't reading too much into this (painfully simple) equation.

Microsoft Zune music / video services going wherever Windows Phone 7 Series goes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After receiving heavy criticism for its premature announcement of the Android 2.1 update for the DROID, Motorola has decided that “transparency” is now its favorite buzz word and has released an Android 2.1 update schedule for its current lineup of Android handsets. Though a nice gesture, the update schedule is short on details and leaves us with more questions than answers. According to Motorola’s schedule, the DROID update will be rolling out “soon” with no concrete date or time frame provided. DROID owners should be thankful for their “coming soon” status, though, as the owners of the Motorola CLIQ have to wait until Q2 2010 and those with the DEXT will have to wait until Q3 2010 to get their update, if they even get it all (see Europe). A similar scenario applies to the Milestone with European Milestone owners receiving their update sometime in Q2 2010, while those in Latin America and Asia-Pacific must wait patiently for Motorola to evaluate the feasibility of an update.

[Via Motorola's Facebook page]

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Those that crave the latest and greatest handsets from LG will have to wait until Mobile World Congress is officially under way, but for now, two new handsets have been announced by the Korean company that should prove to be popular with the masses. First up is the GD880 Mini. As the name implies, the GD880 is very petite (LG is calling it the “smallest and slimmest 3.2-inch full touchscreen phone on the market today”), but it turns out the device hasn’t exactly been shortchanged when it comes to specs; LG has managed to shove a 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and 7.2Mbps HSDPA into the sleek device. Second we have the GT350. Essentially the successor of the KS360 aka Neon, the GT350 is improved by a four-line full-QWERTY sliding keypad as well as a a full 3″ WQVA touchscreen. Both phones are capable of push email and browsing the web, but the Mini has two applications the GT350 doesn’t in Social Network Connect (”which makes keeping in touch with online friends even easier than on a desktop PC”) and Social Network Feed which has built-in access to things the youth are down with like Facebook and Twitter and is integrated with Social Address Book.

Pricing for each device has yet to be made public, but we do know the GD880 Mini will be available in Europe next month (to be followed by other markets) while the GT350 will be available come April.

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After three years of spent treasure, Sharp and Samsung have finally settled their LCD patent fight. Although the terms of the agreement won't be made public, a Sharp spokesman was caught boasting about conditions that "will be in favor of Sharp" -- the company that kicked off the battle back in 2007. As a recap, the disputed patents covered LCD TVs, monitors, and mobile phones in lawsuits filed in the US, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. After a string of defeats in the US and Europe resulted in an import ban on its panels, Samsung, it seems, was left with little choice but to settle on Sharp's terms.

Sharp and Samsung settle LCD patent cases, end legal dispute originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've already seen Lenovo and others pair an SDD up with a standard hard drive for maximum speed, but SilverStone now has a fairly novel solution to let you build your own hybrid storage device. Dubbed the HDDBOOST, the device itself is just a simple chassis that lets you plug in any SDD drive and any standard hard drive and connect the whole rig to your computer -- you can even apparently daisy chain multiple hard drives and have them all take advantage of the SSD boost. Of course, those drives will be recognized as one by your computer, and the initial setup appears to be minimal, with only a simple mirror backup required to copy all your priority data to the SDD -- which the company says could result in up to a 70% increase in speed. No word on an official release over here, but this one should be available in Europe later this month for €33 (or about $45).

SilverStone HDDBOOST lets you build your own hybrid SSD hard drive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Europe got the PlayTV, and now Japan is receiving a digital tuner for the PS3 of its own called the Torne.

Connecting to the PS3 via USB, the Torne adds internet-based program search and DVR functions to the PS3 (that still work even when you're watching a Blu-ray or something). Shows are recorded to either the PS3 itself or a connected USB hard drive.

Then, if you have a PS3, the shows can be transferred to either it or an intermediary media card, or, and this is the neater part, you could watch the shows from your PS3 on your PSP using Remote Play (and Wi-Fi). The Torne is out in Japan this March for about $110, and it will also be bundled with Japan's upcoming 250GB PS3. But there's still no word on a US-based tuner. [Kotaku]

We caught up with Else at CES to check on how they're doing with the First Else since we last saw them back in November. According to CTO Eldad Eilam, the basic functions of the ALP-based phone are finally done and dusted, so now Else will mainly focus on fine-tuning its snazzy visual effects until beta around the end of March. There's no doubt that it's also finalizing plans -- pricing, content distribution, and remote sync service, etc.-- with various partners in the US and Europe. If you happen to be in Asia, then sorry -- apparently Else has no intention to visit you guys just yet, but you might get lucky if you sneak into Sharp's factories in Japan or China. For the rest of us, we shall continuously gaze at our hands-on videos until First Else's expected end-of-Q2 launch -- we've got a new one for you after the break.

Continue reading First Else hands-on: 'still alive and kicking'

First Else hands-on: 'still alive and kicking' originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's already selling in Europe with one of AT&T's 3G bands, but the prospect of a US-friendly Acer Liquid A1 just got real, governmental-involvement style. The FCC has approved a 850 / 1900MHz version of the Android device, and while this is no guarantee of an AT&T berth -- much of Canada is crowding in on this spectrum, not to mention the possibility of selling the phone unlocked and unsubsidized -- we're massaging our temples this very second with the appropriate good vibrations to get this thing out and about in the States and on the cheap.

Acer Liquid A1 hits the FCC with AT&T's HSDPA flavors originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Go figure, right? You get a relatively hot phone out onto more carriers, and just like that, sales increase. It ain't rocket science, buster. As AT&T grins happily while enjoying a death grip on Apple's cash cow here in the States, things are a lot more wide open for consumers across the pond. In both France and the UK, the iPhone has been given the all-clear to be sold on multiple carriers, and according to research from Bernstein, the "widening of the distribution has boosted Apple's value market share to 32 percent in the latest quarter from 21 percent just three months earlier." The notes also mention that Apple's increase is coming at the expense of RIM, with over 600,000 iPhone handsets being sold during Q3 2009 in France alone. The point to all this madness? Oh, not much -- just to tell Sir Jobs that he can count on quite a bit more dough should he decide to sell this elusive "iPhone" device on Verizon in the US of A.

The end of exclusivity leading to big iPhone sales in Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Spica i5700, a wallet-friendly Android smartphone that we’ve been keeping tabs on since September. On sale now in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States with availability in the Middle East and Asia coming shortly, the Galaxy Spica features an AMOLED touchscreen display, 3.2 megapixel camera, DivX support (a first for Android), 3.5mm headphone jack and an 800MHz processor. Oddly enough, official pricing was omitted from the press release, but last we heard it was to go for around 350€ or $524 USD.

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