Dell’s five-inch “entertainment, social connection and navigation device” might be more portable than the iPad, but it may not cost a whole lot less—provided you don’t want to get roped into a contract, at least. Engadget found out from a Dell blog post that the Streak will sell for $549 on its own and $299 with a two-year AT&T contract. The Dell blog post has subsequently disappeared, though. Oooh, intrigue.

In case you’ve been impervious to the Apple PR machine, the Wi-Fi-only iPad sells for $499, and the version with 3G connectivity costs $629. AT&T offers $14.99- and $25-a-month 3G data plans for the latter, but there are no contracts involved. Users just pay for the service on a month-to-month basis.

Also, the Dell Aero pricing and launch dates have been released by Dell. It’ll be available on August 9th for $99.99 with a contract and $299.99 without. That’s all folks.

When HP bought Palm and revealed plans for webOS-powered slate devices this spring, word on the web was that HP had quietly euthanized its Windows 7 slate. Evidence now points to the contrary. Kind of. Engadget has been told by HP itself that the Windows-powered slate is “still very much in the works.”

Confirmation came after a mysterious HP Slate 500 product made its way onto the HP website yesterday. Inquisitive folks also unearthed an EnergyStar page for the device; the page mentions a 1.6GHz Atom processor and Windows 7.

HP hasn’t confirmed any specs directly, though, and even its statement to Engadget is somewhat open to interpretation. The company reportedly said it’s carrying out “customer evaluations” and “will make a determination soon on the next steps.” To my eyes, that phrasing leaves room for the Slate 500’s potential demise. Then again, it’s just as likely that HP will allow Windows and webOS-powered tablets to co-exist.

News has surfaced that Birdman over at Alldroid.org has successfully rooted his new Droid X. And he has uploaded a video for all and sundry to give it a try. The initial reponse to the root seem successful(two of the commenters reporting success at the time of reporting). If you are itching to get down and dirty on the Droid X, all we can say is don’t blame us if you end up bricking your new Droid X.With that warning out of the way, here is the link to the video.

Droid X rooted link

[via Engadget]

Following the launch of a host of phones this summer, not least the iPhone 4 and motorolla droid x,Dell’s Streak device can’t be much further off now. A product page has apeared on Dell’s website, which quotes a “late July” purchase availability date. Users can “sign up for pre-sale,” too—I guess that counts as a pre-pre-order.

The Streak has less in common with the iPad and more with the giant smartphones we’re seeing lately. This device has a five-inch multi-touch display (with an 800×480 resolution), a couple of cameras, cellular connectivity, and Google’s Android operating system.

Dell pimps the Streak’s multimedia and social networking capabilities, and the form factor might make it easier to toss in a backpack than an iPad. Then again, some folks might prefer to lug around a big smartphone—they wouldn’t be sacrificing much display real estate, and carrying one device beats carrying two.

Dear oh dear, the cellphones these days sure seem a lot more problem prone than we usually see. after the iPhone 4 signal loss saga, here’s Motorolla out to prove that they can do anything Apple can do, if not better.

Verizon and Motorola have owned up to a genuine problem with a small number of Droid X displays, approximately one-tenth of one percent. If your screen starts acting up you’d best contact the authorities immediately. And by authorities, we mean tech support, not the FBI — the omnipresent glowing red eyeball is completely normal. Atleast they aren’t trying to bury the issue like Apple.

The original statement reads like so:

“Verizon Wireless and Motorola are aware of a very small number of DROID X units that have experienced a flickering or banding display. Motorola has resolved the issue and is continuing to ship the phones. Any consumer who experiences a flickering or banding display should contact a Motorola customer support center or Verizon Wireless.”

Add Lenovo’s name to the growing list of manufacturers prepping slate devices based on Google’s Android OS.A few weeks ago, Lenovo Chairman Liu Chuanzhi told the Financial Times, “We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China.” Chuanzhi added, “If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.”

lePhone

Those comments appear to stem from a discussion of Lenovo’s LePhone, which appeared in China earlier in the year and has yet to venture beyond the Great Wall. The Android-based LePhone has an interesting mix of elements, including an AMOLED display, a Pre-style dedicated gesture area, and extensive customization for the Chinese market.

These cellphones sure sell out fast. After the record breaking success of the iPhone 4, now the Motorolla Droid X has struggled to meet consumer demand, with the phone now officially sold out, and the next batch available no earlier than July 23. Although the numbers are unlikely to be in the iPhone league, Verizon has struggled in the past to get the Android-based HTC Incredible into consumers’ hands as well, due to a OLED display shortage at the time.

“We have been successful at keeping up with early demand but at present inventory in some parts of the country inventory is either low or out,” acknowledges Verizon. “Since we have weekly shipments planned, customers can still order phones and can expect them to be shipped on or before July 23.”

But what about that news that the Droid X contained embedded systems that would brick the phone if it was tinkered with? Motorola responded to those concerns today:

The Droid X and a majority of Android consumer devices on the market today have a secured bootloader. In reference specifically to eFuse, the technology is not loaded with the purpose of preventing a consumer device from functioning, but rather ensuring for the user that the device only runs on updated and tested versions of software. If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed.

In short, the IBM-developed eFuse system will shut down a Droid X with an unapproved bootloader though it won’t actually damage the phone. Users simply need to re-install “approved software” to get the device up and running again. That’s certainly not-quite the type of openness many users would like to see, but it’s not Droid X apocalypse for hackers, either.

Smartphones have increasingly become targets of hackers looking to modify user interfaces, unlock suppressed features, and remove carrier and other restrictions. Doing so usually violates the terms of service attached to the devices, and bricked phones can often result if online tutorials aren’t followed to the letter. Now, according to a report on TechCrunch, Motorola’s latest Android offering has a built-in kill switch designed to thwart would-be modders.

Dubbed eFuse, this kill switch will trip an internal fuse in the new Droid X if anything messes with the device’s firmware, kernel, or bootloader. Phones that are bricked as a result of the eFuse can reportedly be resurrected, but only with a hardware fix available through Motorola.

Droid X

Enterprising hackers will probably find a way around the eFuse in time. Still, it’s interesting to note that Motorola is being even more aggressive than Apple on this front. Plenty of folks have inadvertently bricked their iPhones while applying various “Jailbreak” methods, but as far as we know, the device lacks an iFuse or equivalent functionality.

[via TechCrunch]

The areas of overlap between Google and Apple have just grown a little bit larger. Earlier today, the search giant announced Google TV, a platform intended to bring “everything you love about the web to your television.” Eat your heart out, Apple TV!(here is Steve job’s response to this initiative by Google)

Or as Google puts it, video may be easier to find and consume on the web, but it’s generally more enjoyable to watch on a big-screen TV in your living room. Google aims to bridge the two by letting users find channels, recorded shows, websites, and YouTube clips via a simple search field on their TV screen.

Google says it’s already partnered up with Sony and Logitech to build Google TV inside of “televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes.” You can expect Google TV-enabled products to start hitting Best Buy stores sometime this fall. The first Google TV-powered televisions, Blu-ray players, and set-top boxes from Sony and Logitech will feature an Intel system-on-a-chip.

Intel Atom System-on-a-chip

Cracking open the products will reveal an Intel Atom CE4100 processor, which includes (PDF) a 45-nm Atom CPU core running at “up to” 1.2GHz, 512KB of L2 cache, a NAND flash controller, a hardware video decoder, a graphics processor, Serial ATA and USB controllers, and other little bits and pieces. You can check out a block diagram of the chip on page two of Intel’s PDF.

According to Intel Senior VP Eric B. Kim (as quoted by CNet News), Google chose Intel hardware chiefly for performance reasons:

“High performance is needed to deal with large screens, multiple streams of high-definition audio and video. Google could not do what they want on today’s SOCs,” said Kim. “This is not something that you hold in your hand. This is something you plug into the wall,” he said, referring to other chip designs that emphasize power saving features over performance.

Kim went on to throw in a thinly veiled jab at Apple, saying, “Our view is that both HTML5 and Flash are great, so our solution supports both.” Apple has taken a strong stand against Flash, and the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch all feature ARM microprocessor cores. The iPad’s ARM-based A4 system-on-a-chip was actually designed in-house by Apple. That said, the Apple TV does include an Intel processor.

As we understand it, Google TV is built on top of the Android mobile platform and Chrome web browser. Google intends to release a development kit and programming interfaces for Google TV so that developers “can build even richer applications and distribute them through Android Market.”

The Android 2.2 (Froyo) is so far the best version of Android OS currently available for Android devices. Though, its officially available for Nexus One so far only but the platform itself is quite powerful and is expected to be available for other devices very soon.

At its launch at the Google I/O 2010 conference, Google announced that Froyo browser is currently the fastest mobile browser available in the market. Their claim was challenged by Engadget and head-to-head comparison was performed between Nexus One running on Froyo and iPhone 4 in terms of browsing speed.

During the comparison, the web browser performance of iPhone 4 couldn’t match the speed offered by Nexus One on Froyo and the new iPhone 4 was put to shame as they failed the test.

Here are the results from the comparison:

Here are the videos of Web Browser Speed test conducted on Nexus One Froyo and iPhone 4:

iPhone 4 vs Nexus One (Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1)

iPhone 4 vs Nexus One (Android 2.2 without Flash 10.1)

via