Features

Nokia N900 ships today; Maemo enhancements get video demo

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 10th 2009 1 Comment

SlashGear is at Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 conference in Helsinki, Finland this week, and the company has just confirmed that the much-anticipated Nokia N900 Maemo smartphone will be shipping today. We’ve been told that the handset – which has a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen and slide-out QWERTY keyboard – went out from Nokia’s production facilities over the weekend, with shipments of the handset beginning in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and North America.

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Video demo of N900 Maemo 5 enhancements after the cut

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HTC HD2 review

By Chris Davies on Friday, Nov 6th 2009 22 Comments

Twelve months ago HTC shook up the Windows Mobile world with the launch of the Touch HD, a smartphone that offered a vast touchscreen, lashings of connectivity and the latest version of their UI tweaking, TouchFLO 3D, to produce what was hitherto thought impossible: an alluring Windows Phone. Now, the company have attempted just such a revolution with Windows Mobile 6.5 in the shape of the HTC HD2. They’ve upped their game with a speedy Snapdragon processor, even vaster display and a fresh UI that’s been educated by their recent work on Android. Can the HTC HD2 again do the unthinkable, and give us a reason to love Windows Mobile?

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Dell Adamo XPS: Hands-On Impressions with Video Demo

By Joanna Stern on Thursday, Nov 5th 2009 3 Comments

We’ve seen it teased and we’ve seen the first photos, but today Dell is finally giving us the skinny (pun intended) on the thinnest notebook ever – the Dell Adamo XPS. The 9.99 mm thin notebook, which will be shipping in time for the holidays, will inevitably be compared to Apple’s Macbook Air and no doubt it is thinner, but the starting $1,800 price tag won’t make it cheaper.

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After the cut: Dell Adamo XPS hands-on impressions, gallery, and video

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Motorola Droid Review

By Vincent Nguyen on Wednesday, Nov 4th 2009 21 Comments

If you can predict a device’s success by site stats then we’d say the Verizon DROID by Motorola is going to be a hit. A week after launch and the DROID is still topping the charts for reader interest, and you’ve been peppering us with questions and comments about the Android 2.0 device. Set to hit shelves this coming Friday, the Verizon DROID is already being heralded as the device that will change Motorola’s fortunes; is that hyperbole, or is the DROID really that good? We’ve been putting the smartphone through its paces, so read on for the full SlashGear review.

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HTC HD2 vs Nokia N900 keyboard comparison

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 3rd 2009 2 Comments

One of the most common questions we’re being asked in the aftermath of our HTC HD2 unboxing is how its on-screen QWERTY keyboard compares to one of the other eye-catching smartphones of the quarter, the Nokia N900. We’ve staged a quick size and keyboard comparison, and you can find the gallery – and read our early opinions on both devices – after the cut.

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Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 gets official: Hands-on Video Demo

By Chris Davies on Monday, Nov 2nd 2009 4 Comments

Sony Ericsson have finally come clean on their latest smartphone, and as expected it’s an Android flagship. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 – previously known as the Rachael and the X3 – is a Snapdragon-based touchscreen candybar, with a huge display, 8.1-megapixel camera and some “special sauce” in the shape of two homegrown applications – for communication aggregation and media aggregation – with a custom UI. SlashGear caught up with Sony Ericsson in London yesterday to take a look at the new smartphone, and find out why the company reckons this is the launch not only of the Android X10 but of a new “user experience platform”.

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After the cut: live XPERIA X10 gallery and video

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HTC HD2 video unboxing & first-impressions

By Chris Davies on Monday, Nov 2nd 2009 11 Comments

It’s fair to say that the last time we saw excitement to this degree about a Windows Phone it centered on the HTC Touch HD, and so it seems only right that it’s the company’s successor to that handset, the HTC HD2, that is prompting such interest in 2009. Announced last month after copious rumors, what makes the HD2 special is its 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen, HTC Sense UI and 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It’s taken a while, but the HTC HD2 has finally dropped onto the SlashGear test bench, so check out our first impressions and an unboxing video after the cut.

Updated with first-boot video demo after the cut

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SlashGear Week in Review – Week 44 2009

By Shane McGlaun on Sunday, Nov 1st 2009 No Comments

The weeks are just flying by, time change is this weekend so I hope you aren’t late for anything. The holidays will be here before we know it. This has been another busy week in the gadget world. HTC has confirmed that Android 2.0 smartphones are incoming and the HTC Dragon is the likely first Android 2.0 device to come from HTC.

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Verizon DROID by Motorola highlights

By Vincent Nguyen on Friday, Oct 30th 2009 20 Comments

We’ve been avidly playing with the Verizon DROID by Motorola since its launch on Wednesday, and while we think it’s still too early to give a definitive opinion on the Android smartphone either way, we wanted to share some highlights. The Motorola DROID could be one of the most important smartphones of 2009, so check out our early thoughts on battery life, the QWERTY keyboard, some camera disappointments and more, after the cut.

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Samsung Moment Review

By Ewdison Then on Friday, Oct 30th 2009 15 Comments

Samsung caught our Android attention with their Galaxy, a slender smartphone with a gorgeous AMOLED touchscreen, and now they’re back with the keyboard-toting follow-up. The Samsung Moment on Sprint is a phone with a few firsts of its own – the first QWERTY Android device to offer an AMOLED display, the first to have an 800MHz processor – but it seems the company stopped their innovation before reaching the software: unlike other Android handsets we’re seeing, there’s no reworked UI and no expansive social network integration. Can a well-turned spec sheet make up for it? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.

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