Acer W4 hands-on (video)

Hey, it's our old pal, the Acer W4. We've heard tell of the device and seen our share of mockups, and this week at IFA, we actually got to play with the thing. The 3.6-inch handset is fairly compact, and pretty slick looking, with its black front and curved white backing. It's not particularly exciting on the spec side, with its 1GHz Qualcomm processor. Nope, what's most exciting here is the inclusion of Mango, which should look rather familiar to Windows Phone 7 owners, while adding some welcomed updates to the mix.

According to Acer, the handset should be arrive some point next month, though the company isn't offering up much in terms of pricing. Check out a hands-on video after the break.

Acer W4 hands-on

ASUS G74SX-A1 gaming laptop gets rated, loves a bit of Battleship

The 1982 Lockheed Sea Shadow may be rusting away in Suisun Bay, but its Commie-spooking contours haven't been forgotten. They apparently inspired the design of the Asus G74SX-A1, which just won aHotHardware recommendation for its cheese-eschewing looks as well as its performance, efficient cooling and realistic $1749 price tag. For once, the Core i7-2360QM CPU coupled with a GeForce GTX 560M and generous 12GB dollop of DDR-1333 RAM actually conspired to surpass the manufacturer's 3DMark benchmark claims. It wasn't flawless though: overall computing performance was middling compared to rivals; the speakers were shoddy when it came to producing music rather than explosions; and the 17.3-inch Full HD display was slightly wasted on some games that only ran smoothly with high quality settings at 1280x720. Still, all this naval talk makes us fancy some Silent Hunter 4 -- and that should play just fine. Check out source link lurking below for the full review.

Mac Windows Phone Connector Updated With Mango Support

Microsoft recently updated its Zune software client to version 4.8.2345.0 which, among many other features, brought official support for the upcoming Mango refresh of the Windows Phone platform. Without leaving Mac behind in preparing computers for the new OS, Redmond has also updated the Mac client.

The Windows Phone Connector for Mac has now reached version 2.0 and it brings a lot of features and fixes, aside from the Mango support. It nowoffers full sync and import support for Apple Aperture software, drag and drop import of files from Browse Device, ringtone transfer support, improved video conversion, support for Windows Phone Marketplace, 13 additional languages and more. You can grab the application by following the iTunes source link below. 

Samsung Galaxy S II Launch Event & Hands-On (Video)

Tonight we were at the U.S. launch of the Samsung Galaxy S II variations coming soon to AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. These devices are similar to Samsung's international version of the Galaxy S II which is very popular in Europe. Five million have already been sold globally. Samsungalso announced their new chief marketing officer Todd Pendleton who previously worked for Nike. The event consisted of a presentation illustrating some of the cool features in the new Galaxy S 2 devices such as the Super AMOLED+ screen, 1080p high bit rate video recording, protected HDMI output for DRM'd content, photo and video editing software, very fast dual core processor, integrated Vlingo voice command, and even some enterprise security and hardware encryption features.

The T-Mobile version of the Galaxy S II was actually under glass at this event, so we didn't get to use that one. Its final specifications haven't been announced just yet and one of the differences is that it has a different type of dual-core processor.


AT&T's version will have a 4.3" screen where as the Sprint and T-Mobile versions will have a 4.52" SuperAMOLED+ screen. The AT&T version will also be thinner than the others at 8.89 millimeters.


I held AT&T Galaxy S 2 (Sprint version pictured above) next to the Infuse 4G which is also very thin and the difference was not noticeable.


HDMI output to a 1080p HD screen looked very nice. Samsung says it's Blu-ray quality.

Unofficial HTC HD2 Windows Phone 7 ROM Allows Official Updates

The HTC HD2 has long proved its ability to run Windows Phone 7 -- among others like Android -- which still makes it an iconic phone to come out from the Taiwanese phone maker's factory. It now gets the ultimate treat, an unofficial Windows Phone ROM which allows for official updates.

The ROM is Build 7.0.7004.0, so it's the original Windows Phone launched last year and is available in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, with the possibility of updating all the way to 7720, which is Mango RTM. It's not the ROM though that is a breakthrough but its ability to be officially updated by Microsoft via the Zune software, just like any other legacy Windows Phone. The ROM also seems to retain its jailbreak state after updates, which is great for those looking for registry editing or sideloading of apps.

If you want to run Windows Phone 7 on your HTC HD2, head over to the source link and carefully read the instructions as well as the risks plus feedback in order to make it work.