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Motorola A810 in pictures


Quick: name a Linux-based Motorola touchscreen phone that isn't widely distributed in North America. Oh, wait, that's all of them! In this case, "all of them" includes the little A810, a phone that's been kicking around the rumor mill since way, way back in February of this year. EDGE data and a 2 megapixel camera should help keep this one priced somewhere in the midrange, and while not necessarily attractive, it's definitely interesting to look at. Come on, you've got to give it that. Click through to the gallery if you don't believe us.

Verizon XV6900 hands-on


Anyone remotely familiar with the HTC or Sprint Touch will feel right at home with Verizon's version, the XV6900. The XV6900 isn't content to just fall in line and play "me too," though -- Big Red decided to go with a blindingly glossy white finish, bucking the soft-touch black used as a staple of the Touch line, and that could be a boon or a bust depending on who you are and how you intend to use the device.

The tenets of HTC's TouchFLO interface are totally preserved from the other Touches we know and love, and thankfully, Verizon went easy with the application of bright red to the UI elements. Physically, the XV6900 is just ever-so-slightly larger than its GSM cousin -- not enough for the average person to ever notice in the course of regular use -- and the addition of 3G data is more than enough to make up for that slight difference as far as we're concerned. One thing that struck us was how much better the XV6900's display was over the original's; the overwhelming improvement in contrast is pretty striking, although to be fair, we would've never noticed had we not had them side by side. Check out the full gallery below.

Nokia E66 mini-review


Hate to break it to you, but there's little more to tell about the E66 that we didn't already cover with the E71. It's basically the exact same hardware and screen in a portrait, sliding form factor, which loses the QWERTY for a numeric keypad. That said, we wanted to go over the specific quality of those differences, and touch on a few things we missed with the E71 review. Oh, and in case you missed our video hands-on with both devices, you can find it right here.

FCC Fridays

We here at Engadget Mobile tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol' Federal Communications Commission's site. Since we couldn't possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we've gathered up all the raw info you may want (but probably don't need). Enjoy!

Phones
Read - Samsung SCH-W580
Read - Samsung SCH-W460
Read - Samsung SCH-U310
Read - Samsung SPH-M220
Read - Samsung SGH-G818E
Read - Samsung SPH-M320
Read - LG KP260D
Read - Vodafone 730

Two years and half billion later, Helio sells for a song. But why?


Money-losing companies with interesting technology and a small, if rabid, customer base still frequently tend to sell for healthy chunks of change -- especially in the wireless space. Look at Trolltech, for example, the mobile Linux company that never really made any money, yet somehow managed to be acquired by Nokia for its talent and IP, which apparently carried a value of over $150m. We know Helio was burning cash on a whole 'nother level, but that doesn't entirely explain why SK Telecom was so absurdly desperate to dump their $500m investment. At a $39m acquisition price, SK didn't just lose its shirt -- it lost that, the shoes, and then the pants. You know, the pants with a half-billion dollars in them.

Continue reading on Engadget

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 hands-on, sorta

Sony Xperia X1

So here's the scene. We're at the Digital Experience show, trying to get our hands on a powered-up Sony Xperia X1. Sure, we found a unit that wasn't powered up, but that does you -- and us -- no good. Sony told us to come back in 15 minutes, so we grabbed some press kits, made a round of booths, and came back.

Sure enough, when we came back the X1 was powered up, but the nice booth lady tried to tell us that things weren't working just right and the unit was stuck on the config screen. After some jiggering, we determined the little X1 was just stuck on the touch screen calibration, and we were cruising through menus within minutes. It's pretty clear this unit wasn't ready for primetime -- you'll even see some HTC test apps in the below gallery -- but we were impressed by the screen's resolution and brightness. Windows Mobile 6.1 showed it face often in the UI, but the phone app and general utilities were looking good.

Overall, the X1 is a pleasure to behold -- it's one sexy device. That said, we'll have to wait how Sony Ericsson's user interface shapes up and just look at the pretty pictures in the gallery until mid-September.

You can find the gallery over here at Engadget Classic.

Hands-on with T-Mobile @Home


We've been tooling around with T-Mobile's just-launched @Home service for a little while now; frankly, there's not much to write about, but in the case of a product like @Home, that's a very good thing. In order to be successful, the whole setup has to be drop-dead simple -- bear in mind that the carrier is targeting folks stubbornly refusing to give up their landlines here -- and it absolutely was. We'll be upfront, we cheated a bit by simply hot-wiring the HiPort router into our existing router, but it worked like a champ nonetheless with the blue phone service status light coming on about 90 seconds after we plugged it in. Customers choosing to play it straight and replace their existing router (or those who are buying a router for the very first time) are greeted with a fold-out poster explaining the step-by-step process to get the ball rolling in plain English.

Sound quality was excellent, caller ID worked, and the voicemail system was up and running right away; if you've got messages, a blue light flashes on the router itself. No status symbol appeared on the handsets themselves to indicate that a voicemail was waiting, though, which kind of sucks considering that your router isn't likely to be positioned somewhere you can readily see it; the only saving grace is that you get the stuttering dialtone when you pick up the line.

Overall, for $10 on top of your bill, this seems like a total no-brainer for any T-Mobile customer with a landline, especially since you can port your number -- and the VTech handset isn't a bad little cordless, either.

Update:
Folks have been pointing out that the voicemail button on the phone should light up when you have messages, but for us, it wasn't -- we checked it thrice. Just a word of warning!

LG Dare hands-on


We spent some touching (get it?) minutes with the new LG Dare that's hitting Verizon Wireless today, and while we didn't come away from the experience a changed human being, we've gotta congratulate LG and Verizon for the obvious effort they've put into this unit. Particularly with the hardware the phone seems determined to differentiate itself from its iPhone competition, with helpful tactile feedback while typing, (almost helpful) handwriting recognition, video recording (in slow-mo, if you'd like) and even editing, and the beefed-up photo taking capabilities that a 3.2 megapixel sensor and built-in flash provide. The basics aren't too bad either, with a sturdy and bright screen, peppy EV-DO Rev A., expandable memory and a flush 3.5mm headphone jack.

Sony Ericsson's C905, Z780 and X1 hands-on


We got our grubby mitts all over the latest and greatest from Sony Ericsson, including that new C905 8 megapixel monstrosity, and, of course, the Xperia X1. The C905 is certainly no slouch in the camera department, with that for-serious Xenon flash and dedicated camera keys, but you'll pay for it in thickness -- the C905 is a good deal thicker than its Walkman counterparts, though that does leave room for a nicely formed slide-out keypad. The C905 is capable of geotagging pictures, but can't upload on the fly to photo services just yet like Nokia's new phones, though such capability is in the works. While the C905 seems finely honed for a specific purpose, the Z780 flip phone seems much more plain jane in comparison, with a rather large size despite its "slim proportions" and a lack of detailing in styling to make it really pop. But, of course, who needs all that featurephone nonsense when you've got the X1 staring 'em all down? We got to twiddle around with an out-of-battery Xperia for a minute, and it's certainly one of the thickest and heaviest phones headed for the market in the near future -- though the upside of that is some glorious build quality, an immense WVGA screen and an expansive, highly touchable keyboard. SE certainly does seem to have something for everybody, but with Moto apparently working on an 8 megapixel camera of its own, and touchscreen rivals to the X1 hogging all the spotlight, SE's isn't looking at an easy road to bumping back that profitability. Oh, and in case you were interested, the gallery below also includes the W760 sporting a black finish, a pink-ish red-ish W580 and the wonderfully tiny W350i.

Motorola MOTOROKR E8 hands-on


Like it or not, the combination of high-function media players with high-function cellphones is officially an inevitability (just ask Apple). It seems like every day a new handset's being announced with that obligatory 3.5mm headphone jack on board, one of the final pieces of the puzzle that had prevented phones from becoming legitimate PMP competitors for years. Motorola took this fusion particularly seriously with the ROKR E8, a slick little candybar announced at CES earlier this year, and we sat down with a China-spec model recently to see just how well it functioned as a full-time replacement for our dedicated music boxes -- and whether it could avoid losing its identity as a phone in the process.

Thanks to the good folks at Wireless Imports for the hookup!



FCC Fridays

We here at Engadget Mobile tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol' Federal Communications Commission's site. Since we couldn't possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we've gathered up all the raw info you may want (but probably don't need). Enjoy!

Phones
Read - LG AX585
Read - Samsung SPH-W5700
Read - Samsung SPH-W5200
Read - Samsung SGH-L750
Read - Sagem my730C

Peripherals
Read - Huawei E166

Hands-on with i-mate's Ultimates


Even as we marvel at the HTC Touch Diamond's gorgeous VGA display, let's not forget that 640 x 480 resolution (buried within the larger context of a monster spec sheet, no less) is old hat for some Windows Mobile devices. i-mate's Ultimate line has been reppin' the high res displays for a while now, starting with the 6150 and 8150 models that were announced well over a year ago; more recently, the 9502 was added, offering shoppers a grand total of three distinct form factors from which to choose plus a more traditional QVGA setup with the 8502. Hate on Windows Mobile all you want, but you have to admit, it's hard to find this kind of hardware diversity with any other platform out there.

We just had an opportunity to play with all four models side by side -- an especially rare opportunity, considering that neither the 8502 nor 9502 are officially being sold in the US (despite their support for HSDPA 850 / 1900). Follow the break for some quick impressions with each of the fearsome foursome.

Nokia E71 review


While Nokia makes a habit of practically defining "featurephone" for the industry, traditionally it's handsets like the N95 that hog all the spotlight, leaving Nokia's few QWERTY phones in the shadows. Not that they've been trying too hard -- while the E62 and E61i have both shipped over here, neither has featured 3G data in US bands, and the E62 even had the distinct pleasure of having WiFi stripped out. Enter E71, the successor to those phones, and Nokia's very first QWERTY device to feature US-friendly 3G.

Nokia is also (finally) taking form factor much more seriously: at 10mm thick, the E71 is one of the slimmest Nokia phones to date, and Nokia claims it's the thinnest QWERTY smartphone on the market. The E71 also attacks the drab, plastic looks of its predecessors with chrome accents and a glossy screen. The phone is incredibly pocketable, and comfortable to hold and use. Of course, with the smaller size Nokia had to cut down on screen real estate and keyboard spacing, but at a QVGA resolution there's little suffering on that front. The keyboard had a much more rigid, clicky feel to it compared to the spongy keys of the E62, and we were virtually typo-free on it within minutes.

BlackBerry Javelin struts its stuff on video


Not convinced that you can eschew the Bold's 3G in favor of an ever-so-slightly (and arguably) hotter shell? If the mid-2009 rumored launch date is right, you've got many, many months to think it over, but in the meantime we thought we'd throw out a little more food for thought. Follow the break for a whirlwind tour of an early Javelin prototype -- and rest easy, there aren't any Burberry faceplates to contend with this time around.

Video hands-on with the new E66 and E71 from Nokia


We got a quick little bit of quality time with Nokia's new business-centric S60 phones, the E66 and the E71. Both phones are virtually identical when it comes to specs, so it really boils down to what you prefer in form factor. If you're a T9 maven and prefer a vertical screen orientation, the E66 slider is obviously your ticket, but the E71's full QWERTY keyboard and glorious 10mm of thickness are probably going to guide it into many a business slack front pocket. The E71's keys have a harder, clickier feel to them than its predecessors, and they're also a tad more crowded than usual -- we had a bit of trouble typing at first, but it's a solid, well-built keyboard that'll certainly come to be second nature with a bit of use. Despite the phone's thinness we found it to be incredibly sturdy and just the right weight. As for the E66, we just love the feel of its slider mechanism, but we're a little puzzled as to the thickness compared to the E71. That said, it's a quite comfortable and small form factor for a smartphone. Our favorite new feature on these phones is the quick switch from business to personal use, which can swap your home screen, email accounts and calendar to your personal stuff after hours -- and with that hefty 3.2 megapixel camera, A-GPS and WiFi, there's plenty of fun to be had with these phones when your work is through. Video after the break.




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