samsung

Samsung's Instinct

Last year in Orlando, Samsung's UpStage was one of the biggest announcements of the CTIA show. And this year in Las Vegas, Samsung may have done it again. Today the company announced the Samsung Instinct SPH-M800, which will land at Sprint this summer. The Instinct looks a lot like a certain cell phone from Apple, but Sprint (thankfully) isn't positioning it as an iPhone killer. Rather, a Sprint spokeswoman called it just an iPhone competitor. We're not quite sure what to make of that, either.

But whatever you call it, the Instinct is undeniably eye-catching. (See our … Read more

Samsung Access to support AT&T Mobile TV

We once thought the LG Vu would be the first device to carry AT&T's MediaFLO-powered mobile TV service, but as it turns out, it's not the only one to share the limelight. Following the news of AT&T's May launch of AT&T Mobile TV, Samsung put out a press release about the Samsung Access, which will be one of two devices to launch with the service. Check out our Samsung Access slide show to see it in all its glory.

The candy-bar-style phone is a lot slimmer than the Vu, plus it … Read more

Fujitsu's 2.5-inch 320GB drive does 7,200rpm

Bigger, faster, thinner is the name of the game in hard drives.

Fujitsu is only the latest drive maker to use superlative adjectives to market its newest product. In this case it's the MHZ2 BJ series of its 2.5-inch hard disk drives, which the company claimed Monday is the "world's first" 320GB drive that rotates at speeds of 7,200 revolutions per minute.

That claim can be a tad misleading since there are drives out there that do the same spin speed, though they're smaller in size. Plus there are higher capacity drives already announced and on the market. … Read more

Gadgettes 82: The Cake Tech Episode

Have you ever looked at a gadget and thought to yourself: "Self, that would make a mighty delicious cake!" Exactly. No one has. So we go where no gadgette has gone before. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 82

Lampposts mystery solved! (thanks Joe) http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/17/ padded-lampposts-in-london-not-really-being-tested/

Jeff Bezos Kindle cake: http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9899249-1.html

Icon watch (easy cake): http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2008/03/icon_watch_just.html

USB slide show for your computer’s vitals (nice-looking cake): http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9899114-1.html

eMotion’s solar-powered media player http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9899007-1.html… Read more

Can Samsung outsmart the Roomba?

How do you come up with a vacuuming bot that can compete with the Roomba, which has become a household word? (A least in Michael Kanellos' house anyway.) Answer: Make it smarter.

That, at least is apparently the strategy of Samsung, which has created its own OCD bot called the "Hauzen VC-RE70V" for the Korean market, according to I4U News. This self-motivated sanitation engineer surveys its premises with a built-in camera, then automatically draws a map that shows where it needs to clean and, just as important, where it's already been so it doesn't waste energy. … Read more

Alltel finds its Muse

Alltel is now selling the Samsung Muse. As we told you in January, the Muse is a slim flip phone in midnight blue. Though its rather generic design won't stand out from the Samsung crowd, it offers more features than you might expect. Inside you'll find a 2-megapixel camera, GPS capabilities with Alltel's Axcess Mobile Guide preloaded, stereo Bluetooth, and a music player. And on an original note, it is compatible with Alltel's new Celltop music-streaming application. The Muse is $269 if you pay full price, but you should be able to get it for $89 … Read more

Unboxing the Armani phone

Much has been written about the Samsung-made Armani phone (not all of it flattering), but the only way to get a true feel for it is to physically handle it. And that's exactly what Crave Asia has done with its unboxing, describing the experience in detail from its luxury packaging to a multitude of accessories. What's it like to get a $1,000 designer phone in the mail? Find out here.

(Source: Crave Asia)

Dell: Flash notebooks are working fine

Dell has crunched its numbers and says there isn't a problem with solid-state drives.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company says that the reliability rates for those notebooks are equal to or better than for notebooks with hard drives and that the return rates are "an order of magnitude lower" than reported in a recent analyst report from Avian Securities. (See more on Dell's full statement here.) We wrote a story on Avian's report.

Avian earlier this week said the return rates for notebooks with solid-state drives has been around 20 percent to 30 percent. A … Read more

Analyst: Returns, technical problems high with flash-based notebooks

Editors' note, March 19, 2008 10:34 AM PDT: Dell has rebutted the claim about return rates, and Avian Securities says it won't challenge Dell's numbers. See "Dell: Flash notebooks are working fine" for more details.

Notebooks with flash-based hard drives cost a lot and, according to managing partner Avi Cohen at Avian Securities, they don't work very well either.

A large computer manufacturer is getting around 20 percent to 30 percent of the flash-based notebooks it is shipping sent back because of failure rates and performance that simply isn't meeting customer expectations, the … Read more

CNET News.com readers weigh in on smartphones

If CNET News.com's readers are any indication, Microsoft's Windows Mobile has a better base of support than one might think, but all the winds are blowing toward Apple.

The results of our first annual (maybe) smartphone survey are in, and thanks to everyone who left comments here on One More Thing or over on Crave, and those who flooded my inbox with responses. Yes, I know we should have a survey tool, but we're working on other stuff right now that's more important. (You'll have to trust me on that one.)

Between the comments … Read more