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Friday, June 06, 2008

LG VX9700 Dare in the wild -- if you can call Verizon "wild"

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/305903396/

Sit back, relax, grab the popcorn, and check this out, because there's this really awesome battle going on between LG and Samsung for the hearts and minds of the touchscreen-loving public on Sprint and Verizon right now (and AT&T, too, if you count the LG Vu). The Glyde and Voyager are fighting the good fight as we speak, while the Instinct will be tagging in shortly -- and right behind it will be this puppy, the VX9700 Dare from LG, which is just now getting some of its first shots out in the environs. Like Sprint's Instinct, the Dare goes QWERTY keyboard-free in favor of a virtual pad; specs include a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSDHC support, and a wide QVGA display. Rumors have it landing in July, at which point we can drop the chain-link octagon cage and let it go toe-to-toe with the Instinct for dominance. Remember, guys, no biting or hair pulling, and may the best fashionable Korean touchphone win.

[Via phoneArena]

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iCall enables seamless GSM to WiFi switching on iPhone

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/306001099/

Filed under: Cellphones

VoIP has been ushered onto the iPhone in quite a few incarnations, but we'd wager than none of 'em are as useful as iCall. Said application is currently in beta form, though a release isn't quite ready for the public at large. Put simply, it enables iPhones to switch from GSM to WiFi (when WiFi is nearby, of course) on-the-fly in order to save cell minutes and bypass the hassle of manually changing over. Interested? We thought you'd be -- hop on past the break to see a demonstrative video of the app in action, and keep a close eye on the read link for a sure-to-surface-soon download.

Continue reading iCall enables seamless GSM to WiFi switching on iPhone

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Western Digital developing 20,000RPM raptor to take on SSDs?

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/306012601/

Filed under: Storage

You read that right. Bit-tech has it from "several sources close to the hard drive industry" that Western Digital is working on a 20,000RPM followup to its new 10,000RPM VelociRaptor. Same 2.5-inch format, same 3.5-inch housing only now designed to better cancel the drives noise. The idea is to take on SSDs in terms of performance while offering substantially greater capacity as flash memory prices continue to fall. We'll just have to pretend that power consumption, vibration, and ruggedness aren't a concern.

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