PSA: don’t try to wow your friends with the key scratch test on the Nexus S — because it’s not Gorilla Glass
Before you stand (perhaps slightly inebriated) in front of a group of wide-eyed disbelievers and poke your brand new Nexus S' display with a fork, rock, key, icepick, or anything else that's hard and pointy, just remember this: it's not Gorilla Glass . That's the official word from Samsung Service's Twitter feed, a stark contrast to the hardened, tough-as-nails surface of the original Galaxy S' Super AMOLED display. No reason is given for the change, but there's an obvious theory: Corning might not have the technology to produce Gorilla Glass that's curved in the way that Samsung wanted -- or they can't produce it in the quantities asked of them -- and so Sammy decided to go with a slightly less rugged screen rather than ditching the so-called Contour Display
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: contour, contrast, disbelievers, display, friends, galaxy, gorillaglass, mobile, nexus, nexus s, obvious-theory, Plastic, sammy, Samsung Service, tough
Samsung Galaxy 550 prepping for low-end Android duty on Virgin Mobile Canada
Americans on Virgin Mobile, you're going to want to keep on keepin' on with your Intercepts -- but our friends to the north are on the verge of getting an apparently exclusive new Android device out of Sammy, it seems. The so-called Galaxy 550 appears to be the same phone that we knew as the Galaxy 5 previously , featuring Android 2.1, a 2 megapixel camera, and integrated Swype atop some manner of smallish display. Needless to say, Virgin's billing this as a low-end smartphone in every sense of the word, saying it's "sweetly priced to fit all budgets" and pairing it with a new $40 plan that'll include 300 anytime minutes, 100MB of data, unlimited local incoming calls, unlimited nights and weekends, and your choice of unlimited messaging or Voicemail 10 / Call Display.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: duty-on-virgin, entry, friends, incoming-calls, sammy, virgin, virgin-mobile, virginmobile
Spain, Portugal vow to kill off roaming fees
The European Union has been trying to put a tight lid on roaming charges between its member nations for some time (just imagine if you paid roaming fees on interstate travel, Americans!), but it's been slow going -- though there are new per-minute caps in place this year, the fact that the concept of roaming exists at all, particularly when only a handful of companies control all of Europe's wireless landscape, is a little crazy.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: charges-as-part, europe, european, friends, hope-the-love, interstate, neighbors, per-minute-caps, portugal, result, travel
Super Twario goes where Tweetdeck fears to tread: Game Center (video)
As if the up-to-the-minute reports on your friends, family, and @davidgewirtz weren't enough, Super Twario for iOS is available right now at the App Store. Your $2 purchase turns reading and replying tweets into a game, as you interact, arcade style, with your friends' avatars and your co-workers' interminable pics of their entrees
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: after-the-break, avatars, engadget, entrees, entry, family, friends, game, ios, result, tweets, twit, your-co-workers, your-friends
Galaxy S Android 2.2 Froyo update begins to trickle out (update: official)
Based on breathless reports we're seeing on Twitter and in the XDA-Developers' forums, it would appear that Samsung has just pushed out the official Android 2.2 Froyo update for its Galaxy S as promised .
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: africa, after-the-break, friends, froyo, galaxy, galaxy s, galaxy2, official-press, samsung, software-update, softwareupdate, southeast-asia, update-begins
Facebook Places goes live in UK, rest of Europe today
In case you've been waiting, we can confirm that Facebook Places is now active in the UK. The Daily Telegraph is saying that it'll also be available "in the rest of Europe" today, though it only seems semi-functional (we can see friends but can't check in) in The Netherlands. Then again, our friends are only semi-functional too, so maybe that's the issue
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: daily, entry, facebook, facebook places, facebookplaces, friends, issue, live, places, release, result, telegraph
iMovie hits iTunes App Store, only for iPhone 4
You may not have an iPhone 4 yet -- unless you lucked out on delivery , you're probably still waiting in line -- but if you did receive Cupertino's latest opinion polarizing handset, you might have noticed it doesn't come with a tool to edit all the 720p footage of jealous friends that you just shot. Thankfully that can be remedied with a portrait of President Lincoln, as iMovie for iPhone just went live -- head on over to the App Store and drop your $4.99
iPhone 4 is unlocked in Canada, too
Americans: gaze upon your neighbors around you if you want to see what a healthy GSM ecosystem looks like. Okay, we're sure many of our Canadian friends would disagree that the Rogers / Bell / Telus oligopoly is anything close to "healthy," but nonetheless, we're still envious of the fully-unlocked option Apple is offering for all iPhones in the online store -- just like the UK -- along with a promise that a "reduced initial price with a contract directly from your wireless carrier" if you're still interested in getting tied up in a contract. That's a lot closer to the European phone sales model, and it's a model American carriers have never even come close to touching
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: apple, european, friends, iphone4, option, result, rogers, sales, wireless, your-neighbors
Engadget Podcast #200, live (with video!) on the TWiT network right now!
Funny how years of irregular recording schedules and unscheduled delays have resulted in Engadget Podcast #200 and the iPhone 4 launch happening during the same week, but sometimes things just work out, don't they?
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: below-or-head, catch-it-live, chat, engadget, engadgetpodcast, entry, friends, funny, iphone, live, podcast, regular, regular-podcast, result, super-excited
Vodafone UK to bring HTC Legend on April 2nd, still mum on date for Desire
Compared to some gadgets , a two-week waiting period is only as painful as a mere mosquito bite, but we're pretty sure that British fans of the HTC Legend would strongly disagree. Thankfully, our friends over at TechRadar ended this torture today with the news that Vodafone UK finally has a date for its exclusive Legend -- "arriving on 2 April." This presumably refers to stock availability in retail stores, since Vodafone is still honoring its website's April 6th date for its pre-order deliveries. As for the Desire , Vodafone's still pointing at the April window, which provides plenty of time to choose between the various UK carriers
Categories: Android, htc, Mobile Phone Tags: engadget-mobile, entry, friends, htc-desire, htclegend, Mobile Phone, news, phone, release-date, releasedate, shop, vodafone, vodafone-uk