CrowdGadgets Episode 7
Download: CrowdGadgets Podcast Archive
Welcome to CrowdGadgets, the official podcast of the CrowdGather Gadget Network. The podcast is hosted by Brodie Duncan, Calob Horton, John Freml, Stuart Cope, and William Devereux. This week’s episode covers the latest news from each of the CrowdGather gadget sites: Anythingbutiphone, Anythingbutipod, Good and EVO, Nothing But Tablets, Pocketables, and StreakSmart.
Anythingbutiphone
The big Mango update for Windows Phone is almost here. Microsoft recently announced that it will begin rolling out the long-awaited update within the next two weeks. The Redmond software giant delivered the update to its partners in late July for testing, so the hardware manufacturers and wireless carriers have had plenty of time to finalize the device-specific firmware that will be released alongside Mango. Many carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, will reportedly begin delivering the update on September 27.
The Hulu Plus app is now available on twice as many Android devices as it was before. The addition of nine new devices brings the total number of supported smartphones and tablets up to 20. It’s nowhere near the full selection of Android devices, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully, Hulu will be able to work out the rest of its fragmentation issues, as Netflix was able to do before it.
Anythingbutipod
Dave McLauchlan, a good friend of Anythingbutipod and the former Senior Business Development Manager for Zune, launched his new startup company, Buddy, this week. The Buddy platform helps mobile developers by simplifying most of the back-end work. It’s a great service and it should end up saving developers a significant amount of time and effort.
Good and EVO
As of October 2, Sprint’s Mobile Hotspot plan will come with a 5GB 3G/4G cap. Formerly, the 5GB cap only applied to data used over 3G; 4G data that was accessed through the Hotspot app on the HTC EVO and other phones remained unlimited. Regular data usage is still unlimited, but many fear that this could be the beginning of the end of unlimited data on Sprint.
Australian carriers Telstra and Vodafone are now carrying the HTC EVO 3D, bringing one of the fastest and most technologically advanced consumer devices to even more people across the globe.
According to a newly leaked end of life (EOL) list, the week of 9/18 was the last week that the white EVO 4G will be ordered by retail stores. This means that once existing inventory is sold out, that’s that. The original black EVO 4G is still on schedule to be offed sometime in early October, although exact dates have still not yet been released. Indeed, as we mourn the loss of one of the most innovative consumer devices to come to market, we look forward at what else Sprint and HTC have up their sleeves for the coming years.
Nothing But Tablets
Books are even cheaper (or free) to obtain on the Amazon Kindle now, with the Kindle Library Lending service going live in the US. This makes for a more streamlined service, as all you need is a WiFi or 3G connection, a membership to a local or city library, and a Kindle (or Kindle App). You will be prompted for your library number and password when you choose your book from the library website, and you will be able to redeem your borrowed book on the Kindle.
Not long ago, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was released (you can read our review on Nothing But Tablets), and now the 8.9-inch model has been released. There is also an additional 7.7-inch model in the works. With a 1280 x 800 AMOLED screen, a weight of only 335 grams that promises 10 hours of battery life, a dual core 1.4Ghz CPU, 16-64GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot, it will be a good addition to the Tab family.
Pocketables
The BlackBerry PlayBook price was cut in Canada, just like we knew about last week. Unfortunately, like we said, it’s only been cut in Canada. It was, however, a $200 price cut, so hopefully RIM will give other countries the same deal.
This week, the Samsung Epic 4G Touch was reviewed on Pocketables, and our conclusion is that it’s the best Android phone on the market today. It’s only $199.99 on contract, so it’s one heck of a deal.
We also review the Acer Iconia Tab A100, and find that it’s a pretty buggy tablet. However, if you’re a complete Android geek, and you want to try out Honeycomb on a 7-inch display, then it might just be worth the $329.99.
StreakSmart
Even though the Streak 5 has already been discontinued in the US back in August, we thought that Dell had continued supplying the Streak 5 to the rest of the world. However, after a bit of investigation, we have found that Dell has stopped supplying the 5-inch tablet to retailers in the UK, which gives us reason to believe that Dell is close to EOL-ing the Streak 5 in the UK. Similar things happened to the Streak 5 shortly before it was EOL’d in the US.
This week it was revealed that the drivers for the Dell Streak 10 Pro have been made available on Dell’s FTP servers for all to download. Obviously, you can’t do anything with them until Dell’s Honeycomb tablet is released. Also, pretty much nothing that we didn’t already know was revealed, except the fact that the Streak 10 Pro will be manufactured by a Taiwanese company called Pegatron.
