February 2, 2011
MSI’s Windows 7-based WindPad 100W now on sale for $710
Engadget
Darren Murph writes about MSI’s new WindPad 100W tablet device.
“MSI’s first entry into the wild, wonderful, and oftentimes wishy-washy world of tablets is now on sale, but frankly, we aren’t too sure we’d be jumping to hand over our $710 — er, $709.95 — for the WindPad 100W. The retailer is Simply Electronics, which just so happens to rank a few rungs below Amazon in terms of heardability-ness. At any rate, those willing to take a flying leap of faith should expect a 10.1-inch device loaded up with Windows 7 Starter, Intel’s Atom Z530 1.6GHz single-core processor, 2GB of memory a 32GB SSD and a battery that’ll keep things humming for around six hours. Here’s hoping it’ll perform better than that first wave of Win7 tablets, and you know, that you actually receive one.”
BlackBerry Curve Touch leaks out
Engadget
Nilay Patel shares leaked details about RIM’s Curve Touch smartphone device.
“The BlackBerry Curve has always been our favorite ‘berry because of its solid keyboard and lack of pretension to any functionality beyond great messaging, but it looks like things are about to change fast: you’re looking at a leaked image of what CrackBerry says is the Curve Touch, codenamed ‘Malibu,”‘ and it’s all touchscreen — unlike the rumored Apollo, there’s no keyboard in sight. We’ve only got specs on the CDMA version, and they’re right in line with what you’d expect for a midrange device due out in late 2011 / early 2012: 800MHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 3.25-inch HVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera with HD video, 1GB storage with microSD expansion and 512MB of RAM, GPS, and NFC. Of course, CrackBerry says those are just ‘proposed specs,’ so anything could change, but man — are we crazy for thinking an all-touch Curve definitely seems to redefine everything about what a BlackBerry is and is not?”
Facebook phone rumors resurface: cloud-based, HTC-built?
Engadget
Donald Melanson writes about a rumoured Facebook phone that’s rumoured to be built by HTC.
“Despite statements by the company that it is flat out not making a phone, the rumours persist, and not one but two separate stories have now cropped up on the same day that a mysterious ‘call’ button has appeared on some folks’ Facebook pages. The first of those comes courtesy of BGR, which says it has heard from someone involved in a recent focus group that supposedly centered on a Facebook phone. As the story goes, the phone (which apparently wasn’t actually referred to as a ‘Facebook phone’) would have an always-on GPS service, no or very little local storage, a camera (with images stored in the cloud), a ‘news ticker-style message notification system’ with all messages funneled into one ‘mass inbox’ and, last but not least, some sort of location-aware coupon service that’s described as ‘Facebook Deals on steroids.’ Joining that is a report from the London-based City A.M. financial newspaper, which says it has learned from unnamed sources that HTC will debut two Facebook-branded phones at Mobile World Congress next month.”