By now most of us have heard this story in one fashion or another: when Steve Jobs and Apple were in the planning stages of the iPhone, the first carrier they brought the device to was America’s largest network, Verizon. Even if you haven’t heard how the tale ends — Verizon refused and Jobs took his multi-billion dollar ball to AT&T — you surely know the outcome. The iPhone has soared to become the ultimate smartphone, the must-have accessory that everyone from celebrities to your mom wants — nay, needs — to have in their pocket. It’s changed the landscape of modern cellphones, put a serious dent in the sales of competing devices (just recently overtaking the venerable RAZR as the best-selling domestic handset), and unquestionably raised the bar when it comes to expectations for features in new handsets.

It may seem unfair to open up the review of RIM’s latest BlackBerry — the Storm — with a history lesson on the iPhone, but if you understand the market which Verizon and RIM hope to capture, then you understand the Storm, and it helps put this critique in perspective. The Storm, a widescreen, touchscreen device boasts many of the same features as the iPhone, but adds innovations like a clickable display, and comes packed with RIM’s legendary email and messaging services. Mainlined into the biggest (and some say best) network in the States, the Storm is an almost deafening blast to the competition at first glance, but does it hold up on closer inspection? Read on to find out.

Gallery: BlackBerry Storm in pictures

From engadget

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Just in time for the latest 007 movie release, Eurotech subsidiary Parvus announced a new version of its military-targeted personal wrist computer. The Linux-ready Zypad WR1100 offers a faster Marvell PXA 270 processor, more memory, a higher-resolution display, plus ZigBee and fingerprint scanner options.

Designed for harsh field conditions where hands-free operation is desirable, the Zypad WR1100 is designed to meet MIL-STD-810F environmental and MIL-STD-461E EMI requirements, says Parvus. The GPS-enhanced device is aimed at military, homeland defense, first responder, security, and emergency service field and in-vehicle applications.

Parvus Zypad WL-1000 (Click for details)

The first Parvus Zypad, the still-supported WL-1000 (pictured at right) shipped in 2006. Later that year Frost & Sullivan awarded the device a 2006 Product Innovation Award in the field of “ambient intelligence.”

Whereas the WL-1000 offers a choice of Linux or Windows CE, the new WR1100 is offered exclusively with Linux. In place of the Raza Microelectronics 32-bit MIPS-based AU 1100, the WR100 is equipped with a Marvell PXA 270 clocked at 416MHz, and it comes with 256MB RAM, 128MB flash, and an SD card, says Parvus. The device offers a higher-resolution (640 x 480) 3.5-inch touchscreen that is said to be protected against water and dust ingress.

Zypad WR1100
(Click to enlarge)

Like its predecessor, the WR1100 is equipped with 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth, a GPS receiver, and accelerometers. In addition, it provides a ZigBee short-range wireless option in place of the Bluetooth radio, and also offers options for an electronic compass and a biometric fingerprint sensor, says the company. Other options in the modular design include hot-swapping the GPS receiver with a GPRS cellular module.

The rugged device comes in a fiberglass-reinforced nylon/magnesium alloy case, and offers a rigid wrist support system with ergonomic positioning controls, says Parvus. Like the original Zypad, the WR1100 offers an orientation sensor that detects when the user lowers the arm on which the device is strapped, and automatically places the unit in a standby mode to conserve power. A “tilt and dead reckoning system,” meanwhile, can determine if a user is motionless or has fallen down, resulting in the transmission of a locator beacon signal.

Zypad WR1100, with and without wrist-strap
(Click on either to enlarge)

Specifications listed for the WR1100 include:

• Processor — Marvell PXA 270 416MHz
• Memory — 256MB RAM; 128MB flash
• Expansion — SD memory card interface
• Display — 3.5-inch VGA (640 x 480) color touchscreen; shock-resistant; optional night-vision compliance
• Keyboard — cursor pad and virtual QWERTY onscreen keyboard
• Pen input — stylus
• LEDs — power, charge, WPAN, WLAN, alarm
• Audio — AC97 codec; integrated mic and speaker; optional 3.5mm stereo or microphone sockets
• USB — 1 x USB Device port; 1 x USB Host port
• WiFi — IEEE 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth — Class 2; optional swap-out for ZigBee
• GPS — 12-channel receiver; DGPS and SBAS (WASS, EGNOS) support; optional swap-out for GPRS cellular radio
• Other features — accelerometer; biometric fingerprint reader; optional electronic compass
• Operating temperature — -4 to 140 deg. F (-20 to 60 deg. C)
• Shock and vibration — meets MIL-STD-810F (Methods 516.5, 514.5C-17)
• Weight — 1.4 lbs (645 gr)
• Power — 3.6V Li-Ion hot-swappable battery; optional AC adapter for 100-240V AC 50-60Hz 400mA input
• Operating system — Linux, based on kernel 2.6

Availability

The Zypad WR1100 is now available “from stock to 12 weeks lead-time,” says Parvus. More information may be found here.

Parvus is showing the WR1100 at its booth 1109 at MILCOM 2008 this week at the San Diego Convention Center. Sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the MILCOM show runs from Nov. 17-19.

From LinuxDevices

Steve Ballmer definitely gets around, last month taking a trip to the UK just to mock Android, this month heading all the way to Korea to praise Samsung’s new T*Omnia. He says it’s “at the forefront of this new generation of mobile devices,” and digs how it “brings together communications, productivity, multimedia, and entertainment in a way that meets the needs of both consumers and mobile professionals.” We think he’s most fond of its operating system (WinMo 6.1), but must admit we’re smitten by the handset too — especially its 800 x 480 screen. That’s more than twice the resolution of the older Omnia, which by the sounds of it will be released in the US sometime this month. Samsung didn’t actually say which Omnia, but since it’s the older one that’s been FCC approved don’t go holding your breath for WVGA goodness. Lucky Koreans, meanwhile, can expect the T*Omnia to start being served up by SK Telecom on November 20.

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from engadget

Remember that medical tablet Panasonic revealed at IDF earlier this year? No? Well, it happened. Details were pretty hard to come by then, but the company’s officially announced the product as the H1 tablet. The fully ruggedized slate is built on familiar netbook internals with a 1.86 GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB SSD, a 10.4-inch 1024 x 768 resolution LCD display with an InPlay Technologies digitizer, and 802.11a/b/g/n. It’s going to be available in January of 2009 for a somewhat staggering $2,799, though the figure is less painful when you consider that awesome custom handle on the back. If you can’t get enough tedious details about devices such as this, you’re in luck: hit the read link for a serious plethora of information in the press releases, and check out the awesome educational video they’ve released after the break. We think you’ll find it has a lot to offer in terms of production values and soundtrack.

Update: We were contacted by a rep for Panasonic, and it turns out that the H1 is going to run you $2,999, not $2,799.

[Via Gotta Be Mobile]
from engadget

Size definitely matters for MIDs, what with the whole Mobile moniker in there, but features matter too, and USI’s upcoming MID-160 offers most of the important ones. It’s got a 5-inch 800 x 480 touch-screen, connectivity over 802.11b/g as well as HSDPA and WiMAX, plus GPS and Bluetooth, served by an (unspecified) Atom processor and 512MB of RAM with 8GB of flash storage (expandable via microSD). All that’s delivered in a package just 15mm in thickness and 250 grams in heft, but sadly missing one thing we tend to use a lot when surfing the web: a keyboard. Nokia’s N810 WiMAX Edition has one, plus most of the other goods (lacking the Atom and 8GB of storage), yet manages to be just as thin and even lighter — not to mention available right now. By contrast we have no information on availability or price for MID’s sleek, but perhaps unnecessary, successor to the M-150.

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from engadget

One might think that the BlackBerry Bold and the BlackBerry Storm could get along together, but similar to twin brothers who both aspire to graduate Magna Cum Laude from an Ivy league school, these two aren’t exactly the most loving of siblings. Oh, and toss in that iPhone 3G — which played a huge role in helping Apple sell more phones than RIM last quarter — and you’ve got yourself a bona fide mess. Check out all three getting shoved up on one another in the name of comparison just after the break. It’s a little uncomfortable at first, but you’ll get used to it.

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from engadget

So you’ve already seen what RIM’s BlackBerry Storm looks like in Vodafone garb, but if your feeble mind just can’t envision what it’d look like with a Verizon logo on there, feast your retinas on this. A few new press shots of the VZW Storm have swooped in, though there’s nary a surprise to be found. Still, we know you enjoy gawking, so hit the read link for a few more angles. As for a hard release date? Puhlease.

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from engadget