Meizu’s M8 started out as a comedy iPhone clone and gradually developed its own – at least partial – identity; now some earnest modders have given it a complete OS upgrade. Out went Windows CE, to be replaced by Google’s Android platform, though it’s still very early days and you lose more than just the original UI in the process.
Video demo after the cut
Ah, Arduino – is there anything you can’t do? Didgeridoo enthusiast Kyle Evans decided to take his instrument of choice into the wireless age, by coupling it with a Bluetooth-capable Arduino microprocessor and custom-built externally-mounted sound modules that allow the player to manipulate the sound and control various software instruments (that, again, have been custom created). The end result looks like it should fire rockets and sounds like nothing on Earth.
Video demo after the cut
Nokia’s Booklet 3G isn’t the only new device from the company on our test bench today; two of the Finn’s newest smartphones have also arrived, in the shape of the N97 mini and the E72. Announced back in September and June, respectively, each offers a full QWERTY keyboard and S60 OS, but in strikingly different ways. Check out our unboxing videos, live galleries and some first impressions after the cut.
Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 event wasn’t intended to launch any hardware, but we’ve arrived back today to find quite a few Finnish goodies waiting to be played with. First up is the Nokia Booklet 3G, the company’s first netbook and a distinctive one at that: as well as the MacBook-style design there’s integrated 3G WWAN and GPS as standard. After the cut, check out our video unboxing and initial gallery.
Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 event isn’t intended to launch new hardware – they had Nokia World a few months back for that – but they couldn’t let the day pass without revealing a few details as to how they envisage devices and services of the future functioning. Heikki Norta, SVP of corporate strategy, took to the stage to show a demo video of possible mobile life in 2015, complete with location sharing, face recognition and that old mainstay of futurology concepts, projection keyboards. There’s also a pretty impressive dual-display netbook and a modular system which can easily switch your “passport data” between a full-sized handset and a smaller unit more suited to exercise-wear.
Video demo after the cut
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.
Video demo of N900 Maemo 5 enhancements after the cut
The Litl Webbook met with confusion when it officially launched earlier this week. While the 12-inch notebook may resemble a netbook for kids, its $699 price tag slots it in among grown-up laptops, begging the questions of who exactly is the target audience and why should they bother? CrunchGear’s Doug Aamoth caught up with the Boston company to find out some more details plus get a hands-on play with the Webbook itself.
Video demo and interview after the cut
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?
Even if you don’t quite see how a MID or UMPC might fit into your daily life, most people can summon up some enthusiasm about just how much tech is squished into those tiny chassis. Kohjinsha’s PA-Series MID wowed us when it made its dinky debut then caused us to choke when we saw what the company were charging; now Wow-Pow have unboxed the tiny convertible.
Video unboxing after the cut
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.
After the cut: Dell Adamo XPS hands-on impressions, gallery, and video
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